


Joey Claire, Knight of Light

by macrocosmonaut



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Anachronism, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Canon-atypical violence, Carapacians as humans, Floating Timeline, Gen, I mean Hiveswap Act 1 is rated E10 and this fic... most definitely isn't..., POV Alternating, Secret Identity, The alpha trolls are somewhat vaguely competent, This entire thing is pretty much just a Protomen AU..., pesterlogs, sibling dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12907731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macrocosmonaut/pseuds/macrocosmonaut
Summary: Home to the lost, the desperate and the hopeless, Neo City is a cold and heartless place, the neon-lit refuse heap of the universe. Mighty heroes and villains - Powers, everyone calls them - fight for control of the city, but someone’s got to look after the little guy and that duty falls to you. With your trusty sidekick the Seer of Doom at your side, you sort out the missing people, the burning buildings, the muggings, even the cats stuck up artificial trees when you have to. But tonight you have bitten off more than you can chew. It’s not just about saving a life any more. A monster who feeds on the innocent is getting bolder and stronger, and the fate of the entire city depends on you stopping them.(It is inconsequential that you wish to remain a small-scale hero, Joey. You have a purpose in all of this - you are the lead dancer in the cruel ballet of Fate, if you will - and I can’t have you hiding from the spotlight forever.)





	1. [A1C1] Reflect

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is what happens when you listen to [Keep Your Head Down](https://youtu.be/47IOSYnYiRc) on loop over and over again, so if you want an insight into what was going through my head whilst I wrote this, you should do the same. You should also imagine everything is just absolutely drenched in neon light; I tried to get that across in the prose but the English language is only capable of so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **It's Going to Be a Long Night...**

#### ACT ONE  
KNIGHT OF LIGHT

When you come to, the first thing you notice is the stench. You’re lying on something soft and bulky that smells like rot. Everything’s wet and cold, and your outfit is soaked through. And then there’s the pain. It’s so far away that you don’t feel it at first, muffled under the nauseating smell and the freezing cold, but when you do realise it’s there it blooms out to fill your entire body. Your arms, your stomach, the crown of your skull. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to move. God, is there a part of you that doesn’t hurt?

Forcing your eyes open takes superhuman effort, and you’ve used all of that up today. Ha. Black spots dance in the corners of your vision, in stark relief against the neon blues and purples flooding the alley, lighting up the haze and smog of the night sky.

...Oh, okay. So you’re in an alley. It must have just stopped raining, because everything's covered in droplets of water. You… really don’t know why you’re here or how you got here. Your last memories before this are of practising ballet in the attic, waiting for your brother to wake up.

When Jude appears in front of you, his form wobbling into view like a degaussed monitor, it all starts to make sense. Well, not exactly; you still have no idea what you’re doing in this alley. But your brother never leaves the house, so if you can see him now, goofy black jumpsuit and all, it can only mean one thing. Under the smooth white dome of his helmet, behind the black mask, his green eyes are full of fear, and they burn with an unnatural light that’s almost painful to look at, so vibrant that you swear you can see it shining off windows and drain pipes.

“Oh no,” he says. His voice is small and broken and he sounds so exhausted, like the tired, scared thirteen-year-old he tries desperately not to be. “Joey. Joey. Oh God, I was worried. What did they do to you?”

“You look so stupid,” you reply. You don’t say Jude’s name out loud because even in the confused state you’re currently in, you’re well aware that anybody could be listening. But even so, you can’t find it in you to be as worried as he is. Your head hurts and everything feels so fuzzy and distant, and even though you know you should be freaking out about how you can’t remember how you got here, it all seems so inconsequential.

“Shut up, Joey,” he says, but there’s no malice in it. In fact, the way his voice wavers is like a knife in your chest. “You’re injured. Severely, I think. I never thought that… What happened when you left the sewers? What did they do to you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know what happened or who did what, I can’t remember anything. Why can I see you?”

Jude comes closer and stretches over to look at you, his fingers phasing through your armguards as his illusory form leans on you for support. “Something bad's happened to you,” he says. “Does your head hurt?”

“Yeah,” you say. When you reach a hand up to your head, Jude leans backwards to get out of your way, even though he’s not really there. Your Crown - nothing fancy, just a flower crown of red, pink and white roses - is still firmly on your head, but your hair is matted and damp, and when your fingers press against your scalp it sends an agonising blast across your skull like you struck yourself with a hammer.

“Careful, careful,” Jude says as he watches you wince, “That looks painful.”

“You have no idea. Am I going to die?”

“No, of course not,” Jude says far too quickly. “You’ll be fine. We just need to get you some help. Can you stand?”

Your feet are dangling over the pile of whatever you’re lying on. You tilt your head to take a look and… wow, nice. Bags of trash. The perfect place to take a power nap. Well you guess that explains the smell. You push your feet against the floor and you’re rewarded with waves of pain so intense that you have to grit your teeth to hold in a whimper.

“Come on, Joey,” Jude says, “You can do it. I can’t get to you. You’ve got to save yourself tonight. We’re all counting on you.”

Taking care not to stick an arm through your brother, you flail about to find something to hold on to. The ladder of a fire escape dangles overhead, slick with rain. You grab hold of it and drag yourself upright. It’s like lifting a two ton weight, and every atom of your body screams in agony as your legs threaten to give out from beneath you, but eventually you’re standing upright atop the trash bags, taking deep breaths while you wait for the spinning to stop and the black shadows creeping around in the corners of your vision to fade.

Times like this, you really wish you had a healing factor.

Jude’s still staring at you, wide-eyed with terror behind his black mask. The small strip of his face is pale with fright and tense with worry, barely visible under his helmet, between it and the black jumpsuit inlaid with filaments of green computer wire. “You’re doing so great, sis,” he says. “You’re nearly there. You’re so close.”

“So close to what?” you snap. You’ve never heard your little brother sound as caring or as terrified as this, even when he normally gets a bad vision, and it’s starting to freak you out. Some distant part of your brain wonders if it's messed up that you care less about the state you’re in and more about how badly Jude is reacting to it. In an effort to prove to him that you’re okay, you step off the pile of trash and, ow, every step reverberates through your body like it’s going to shatter you into tiny bits, but eventually you reach the floor and you’re not swaying too much.

“You’re doing great,” Jude says, and you can tell he's deliberately not answering your question. “Between your Crown and the adrenaline, you're going to be fine. Well, not fine, but good enough. Reckon you can get up there? You nearly made it all the way after your run-in with the Kindness.”

As Jude speaks, he points behind you, up the fire escape, but you don’t turn to look. Things are beginning to click into place, like the corner pieces of a huge jigsaw. You recognise the Kindness. The name sparks some huge recollection that you don’t quite have enough clues for. “That… sounds familiar,” you tell him, “What’s the Kindness? Why’s it so important?”

“We don’t have time for questions yet,” Jude says, “You’re not out of the woods yet, Knight of Light. We can still see each other. I’ve got Langly looking for the Ariborn. Your job right now is to save Joey Claire.

Again, a flash of recall. You see the burgundy Ariborn sign in your head, and it means… something.

“I think you’ve got a concussion, maybe?” he continues, “Something serious, anyway. Like I said, your Crown’s supporting you but you’re in no shape to fight villains. You need healing. That’s why we’re here.”

You look around yourself and sort of recognise the alley you’re in. The open dumpster behind you, the pile of trash in front of you and the fire escape ladder above that… Did you take them all out for some height to catch the ladder? Why didn’t you just wheel the dumpster over? At least the bags were a softer fall, you suppose.

And then it clicks. You remember where that ladder leads and have to suppress a shudder. “No,” you tell Jude, “I’m not getting help from the Poisoner of all people!”

“Please, Joey,” Jude says with a sigh, “Do we have to have this fight now? You nearly went there on your own earlier. He’s on our side now. We can trust him.”

“No, we can’t! Obviously I wasn’t thinking right earlier, but now that I am there’s no way I’m getting help from him! He’s awful and I can’t stand him!”

“Don’t be like this. Look, I don’t trust him either, not really, but do you think I’d tell you to do this if there was any other choice? You were out cold for ten whole minutes. How many doctors are there in this city who are going to help us? I can’t risk you going somewhere else and being caught by the Kindness’ minions, or worse.”

You cross your arms and glare at Jude. He glares right back at you. "Don’t make me ring Roxy and tell her you’ve gone missing," he says.

“Fine,” you eventually spit out. You know you were always going to cave eventually, so what’s the point in dragging this out? You’re all the two of you have in this world, really. Just this once, you can let him win.

You climb back onto the trash bags, reach over to the fire escape and pull yourself up. You feel dizzy and lightheaded for a second, so you to cling to the ladder for a second until things get back to normal.

“Joey, take it slowly.”

“I’m okay,” you reply, and pull yourself up to the next rung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Joey fits the description of a Maid of Light much better than a Knight, but Maid of Light isn’t an impressive superhero name and also come on, the role of the Knight is to use their aspect as a weapon and Joey’s strife weapon is a literal flashlight! Plus, it would be cool if Hiveswap’s main characters all have classes that are rare for their gender: Joey the Knight of Light, Jude the Seer of Doom, Xefros the Maid of Rage, Dammek the Thief of Blood and Trizza the Prince of Blood. (Not that any of this will matter in this story, as Jude and Joey are probably going to be the only characters whose superpowers are wholly based on their Classpects.)


	2. [A1C2] Recollect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **"In troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy."**
> 
> This chapter's song is [White Cyclosa by Boards of Canada](https://youtu.be/J_Z2DMquT4A).

Even though the exertion hurts enough that you want to scream, you take care to walk as quietly as you can on your way to the fourth floor. Hippok Mortwe’s lights are all out, because of course they are. You tap on a window and after a few seconds of shuffling two red, sightless eyes peer out at you, barely visible in the darkness if not for your infravision.

Hippok is wearing black, sopor-encrusted pyjamas with the jade Virmini symbol embroidered on the collar, and when you lean forwards you can see fluffy, pink slippers on his feet. Two horns shaped like the letter T, pointing to the front and back, stick up from his shaven head. The way he yawns and sways from side to side is disarmingly calm. He’s the total opposite of the calculating, hyper-vigilant Poisoner you fought on so many occasions.

You watch as Hippok slides the window up and leans out of it, angling his head to one side so that his horns don’t hit the lintel. “Long time no smell, Knight,” he says, fixing the space behind you with a serene, calculating expression. Or maybe he's just still half-asleep. “What took you so long?”

“I stopped to take a nap,” you say bitterly. “Did the Seer tell you I’d be coming?”

“One of his birds woke me up about fifteen minutes ago,” Hippok says, nodding, “Didn’t give me anything useful to go on. Just bashed on my window until I let it in, and then I had to listen to him babbling about how you needed help and how I had to fulfill my side of our bargain.”

“Well. Here I am.”

“Here you are, indeed, though you took your time about it. You’d better come inside before somebody spots you.”

Hippok retreats and you clamber through the raised windowpane. Thank God for your infrared vision. Without your Power, and with the neon lights outside providing a mere shadow of illumination, you’d be completely blind in here. And even though Hippok’s acting harmless now, you don’t like the idea of being defenseless inside his lair… erm, apartment.

Right now, you appear to be in his kitchen, or whatever the troll word for kitchen is. You hop off of the windowsill you’re sitting on and take a look around, ignoring how your sodden clothes are dripping on the floor. It looks nice in here. A lot of human appliances, but they’re state of the art: a convection hob, a fridge with two doors and an ice dispenser, a dishwasher larger than your oven back home. There are no decorations, which isn’t all that surprising, but there are jars and drawers for everything and you can’t see as much as a breadcrumb out of place. This kitchen is almost the exact opposite of yours and you can't help but feel a little jealous.

Hippok stands in front of you and wrings his hands. A faint smile flickers across his lips, a tiny display of nervous excitement that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You smell awful," he says.

“Yeah, I fell in the garbage on the way here.”

“No, that’s not what I meant and you know it,” Hippok says with a sniff. “Someone really did a number on you. You’re like one big ball of ouch. You’ve...” he sniffs again, stares through you with a look somewhere between sympathy and indignation, “Did somebody drop a cinderblock on your head?”

“I can’t remember,” you say, “My memories of tonight are kind of blurry.”

“Retrograde amnesia? That’s an intriguing symptom. May I?” When Hippok holds his hands to you you flinch back on instinct. “Don’t worry. I’m not… You’re not in any danger from me. I just need to get a better smell of you so I know what I’m dealing with.”

“You’re going to diagnose me by smell? That’s really creepy and also a little gross.”

“Well I’ve had six months to practise, haven’t I? I’m not going to do anything weird. I’m just going to put my hands on your shoulders and smell your bleeding.”

“Right, because that’s not even close to weird,” you say, but this time you allow Hippok to rest his hands on your shoulders as he takes long, steady breaths.

“Minor bruising, some lacerations, a few broken ribs, a mild concussion… Hmm, that would explain the amnesia. Maybe some hairline cranial fractures too.”

“Is it bad?” you say, because you have to ask.

“Well, let’s just say you should be glad you came to me. You took quite a beating, but it’s nothing I can’t fix. Just be warned, this isn’t going to be pleasant for either of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Unless you want to spend a few days bedridden, I’m going to need to use my Power to fix you. Which means you’re going to feel awful and I’m not going to have any fun at all.”

There’s a staticky crackle behind you as Jude’s illusory form shakes itself into existence. The sudden noise in the otherwise quiet room makes both you and Hippok jump. Jude is making himself perceptible to others, the green glow of his eyes cutting through the dark room like a pair of floodlamps as the reflected shine off his helmet paints the whole room in mauve and teal. “It’s not about fun,” he says.

“Ah, the Seer of Doom graces us with his frustratingly imperceptible presence,” Hippok says, sniffing, “So this must be worse than I thought. Ooh, this will be grand.”

“No, stop,” Jude says, stamping his foot, “We don’t have time for this. Someone’s in danger. They just inherited their Power and the Kindness is after them. They don’t have a Crown or anything yet.”

“So let the Kindness take them, then. They probably won’t die. Why are you so worried?”

“Because nobody else cares!” Jude shouts, and the way his voice breaks is just too awful to listen to, “We have two years until the Cosmic Witch comes back and the only reason we still have these Powers is so that we can fend her off again.

Hippok rolls his eyes -- a useless gesture, but then again he hasn’t been blind for all that long.

“No. Quit that,” Jude says, pointing a finger at Hippok and glaring as if he isn’t half the troll’s size. Even if he can’t see Jude’s body language, he definitely notices the desperate, anguished tone of his voice. Jude sighs, pushes up a pair of glasses that aren’t there, and continues, “She _is_ coming back. And do you know what’s going to happen? The entire city is going to burn, and we’ll all drown in rivers of blood. Prospit and Derse, no-one will be safe. I have nightmares about it whenever I close my eyes, and nobody else knows or cares. _That’s_ why we’re doing this. That’s why we need your help. Just this once, please don’t make this about how fun it is or what experimental methods you can use. We just need you to fix the Knight of Light so we can save someone’s life.”

Hippok doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Alright,” he finally says, throwing his hands in the air, “No need to twist my arm with the sob story. If you kids want to be vigilantes so badly, knock yourselves out.”

“Wait, that’s it?” Jude asks tentatively.

“Yeah. Just… give me a few minutes to get my stuff out.”

“Yes!” Jude shouts, jumping and punching the air, “Thank you, Hippok, thank you so much!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Hippok says as he heads to the door.

When Hippok’s gone, you turn to Jude. “While we’re waiting, you have to tell me everything.”

“You really can’t remember?” he asks, eyeing you warily. When you shake your head, he huffs. “I only know what happened until you went into the sewers. Frohike couldn’t fit. You’ll have to remember that yourself.”

“But you’ll tell me the rest?”

Jude nods, causing his helmet to shift forwards. As he rearranges it, you hold a hand out and concentrate. You can feel your Power deep inside you, like a rumbling engine or a burning sun floating in your soul. The barest trace of effort and the open palm of your hand lights up with glorious light, amplified and strengthened by the mirrors and lenses in the fabric of your suit. At least you remember how to do this.

Oof, maybe that was a bit too bright, even as unfocused and undirected as it is. Jude recoils from the blazing beacon of your arm, hands shielding his face, and even you have to squint at the light. You quash it before the wallpaper starts peeling.

“Well at least the Kindness didn’t take your Power,” he says. And then you have to stop and think about the implications of that, which are honestly kind of worrying. So the Kindness takes Powers from people? And you were in the process of saving someone from them; someone who had only just inherited their own Power. Oblivious to your thoughts, he continues: “No, I don’t think they would have taken yours. It’s been growing in you for too long. They couldn’t remove it from you without taking most of you with it. They’re brutal, but I’m coming to believe that murder's not an intentional part of their M.O. What do you think?”

Wait, he’s talking to you? You blink at him.

“Oh, right,” he says. “Memory loss.”

“Look, just keep it simple for now. The troll I was saving, the Ariborn. Tell me about him.”

“I dunno what to say. I’ve got Langly looking for him but the trail’s gone cold. That might be his Power or maybe he just had a lucky break.”

“So we don’t know what his power is?”

Jude shakes his head. “He definitely inherited one, though. He was outside in the Tyrian Rain for hours. I mean, that and the Kindness was chasing after him.”

As you start to ask another question, the door clicks and swings open. “We’re all good to go, if you’d like to come this way,” Hippok says. He’s thrown a lab coat over his pyjamas. The breast pocket on the right has been torn off and the one on the left, emblazoned with his symbol, has something rectangular inside. A blast of your x-ray vision and you can see it’s actually four needles, each with a capped syringe and a chamber full of liquid.

Jude’s figure shudders with another crackle. He’s no longer reflecting the light around him. “It’s going to be fine, Joey,” he says, and Hippok doesn’t react in the slightest, “Frohike’s on the roof, scanning in. If anything happens I'll be able to hear everything, even when you’re fixed and I can’t be with you in person.”

“Thanks,” you reply.

“My pleasure,” Hippok says, “Now get in here.”

Jude’s hand reaches out to yours, and his fingers clip through yours as he gives them a squeeze. You step out of Hippok’s kitchen into the cramped corridor beyond.


	3. [A1C3] Renewal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **Paradoxical Panacea.**
> 
> This chapter is brought to you by [Examination by Change.](https://youtu.be/QQj-ghIlKHw)

Hippok leads you through a corridor, past what you presume is his front door, with two chains and seven locks sloppily bolted on. “That’s a bit excessive, isn’t it?”

Hippok’s hand rests on the handle of a door on the far side of the corridor. He turns, without lifting his hand, fixing a sightless stare on the patch of wall above your head. “You’re not the only Power who knows who I used to be,” he says, “Miss Miracle, for example. She certainly hasn’t forgiven me for what I did.”

“Pfft, you’re not going to keep Miss Miracle out with a few locks. She could rip this whole building from its foundations if she wanted.”

“The locks aren’t _for_ Miss Miracle. They’re to keep out her alter-ego.” He says it in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, like he hasn’t just dropped the biggest bombshell in history.

You stop where you are and stare, mouth agape. Jude, next to you, is similarly stunned. Miss Miracle, the Woman of Tomorrow, the Saviour of Neo City, the Caped Champion, the Scourge of the Midnight Crew. And Hippok just happens to know who she really is?! Your mind isn’t just spinning, it’s in free fall. “You know Miss Miracle?!”

“Well not quite. But she could be wearing a thousand masks and I’d still be able to recognise her. Consider it the only upside of no longer relying on my eyes. When you start to pay attention, people have all sorts of tell-tale signs they don’t even realise are there. Choice of vocabulary, stance, emotional responses. There are so many things that you sighted people simply don’t realise because you’re all far too too focused on outward appearances.”

You can’t bare to ask the question, but you have to know. “Do you know who I am, too?”

Hippok just shrugs. “Nope. Never smelled you without your mask on.” He turns to the door, pauses, turns back to face you again. “I know what you’re going to ask next, and don’t worry. Just because I know these things doesn’t mean I’m going to start running my mouth. I’m reformed, remember?”

Hippok flashes you a fanged grin. It’s entirely unconvincing. You turn to look at Jude. The way he looks back at you, he’s got to be just as unsettled as you are.

Your many aches and pains are an insistent reminder that you don’t have time for any of this. You take a deep breath and force yourself to ignore the rising stress growing inside you. “Who even cares? Let’s just get on with it.”

“Quite right,” Hippok says, and pushes open the door.

You’re expecting some DIY operating room with plastic sheeting everywhere, and you’re somewhat disappointed when the room turns out to just be Hippok’s living room. Like the kitchen, it’s pretty nicely decked out with human things. There’s an overstuffed sofa against one wall with a few bean bags in a pile to one side. A high-backed leather armchair is in the middle of the room, with a glass coffee table in front of it. The far wall is taken up by a huge curtain, and the lights shining through from outside paint the room in a thousand shades of blue. Next to it, tucked into the corner opposite the armchair, is the largest television you’ve seen in your life. The thing is fifteen inches from corner to corner, and you can’t help but feel envious when you realise it must be a colour TV. It’s even hooked up to a Betamax player. You’re so impressed by it that it takes a few seconds for you to wonder why Hippok would bother to have one at all, let alone splash out for one that displays colour. As far as you know, he didn’t move into this apartment until after he lost his sight. You know trolls can use their other senses to make up for a lack of sight in ways humans can’t, but you can’t possibly wrap your head around how Hippok might be able to smell television signals.

As you’re wondering this, Hippok throws his arms wide. “Welcome to my operating theatre, Knight of Light. Sit down on the sofa. Or on the splaysacs. Or anywhere you feel comfortable.”

“Really? Isn’t all of this going to make a mess?”

“A mess?” he says, absolutely perplexed. After a second, something must click because his eyes widen. “Ohh, right. No, not at all. I’m not going to be cutting you open. You’re thinking of the things I did as the Poisoner, aren’t you? With the bone saw and the needle crossbows?”

You nod.

“That was mostly for show. The idea of being some kind of evil doctor appealed to me back then, especially because I always knew I’d never be a real one. But no, there's no surgery happening today.” He pats the breast pocket of his lab coat with the syringes inside, “Just my Power and a little saline solution.”

“Without your Crown? Won’t that hurt?”

“Oh, probably a lot. So that makes us even, yes?”

“You killed people, Hippok,” you say, folding your arms, “If I had it my way, you’d be locked up in jail, not luxuriating in your penthouse.”

“I don’t know what you think a penthouse is, but it isn’t this. Anyway, I was joking. Just... sit down or something while I put some music on.”

Hippok walks over to the TV. You stay standing at the edge of the room, watching as he hooks his foot behind the Betamax player and drags out a small box. When he reaches down it opens with a quiet click and, after a bit of fumbling, he takes a cassette out and slides it into the player. The television flickers to life and a recorded pop music channel begins to play. You guess the TV isn't quite as state of the art as you thought at first. The colours are washed out and the entire right side is a staticky mess.

Jude perches on the edge of the sofa’s armrest, staring at the television as two women in sparkly leotards dance on a stage. “The light from outside makes the ladies on TV look a little bit like Pa’s blue ladies, don’t they?” he says.

Eugh. Now that he’s mentioned it, you really can’t unsee it. “Does that have to be on?” you ask Hippok.

“Yes,” he replies, “I need to stay in the zone. Music helps.” He turns to face you and frowns, hands on his hips. “You’re still standing.”

You hesitate. “You could do anything with your Power. How do I know you won’t hurt me?”

Hippok lets out an exasperated sigh. “Look, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have locked you in the hall and turned the air into mustard gas. Or called Starstorm to set up an ambush. Or shot you, in the head, with a gun. Or, judging by the state you’re in, I could have just not come to the window. Now do you want my help or not?”

Welp. You walk over to the armchair and sit down, with great reluctance. Jude gets up off of the sofa and walks behind you, hovering his hands just over your shoulders. The effect is slightly ruined because the back of the armchair is almost as tall as he is, so he has to phase his hands through it, but you appreciate the gesture anyway.

Hippok takes a syringe out of his lab coat and holds it up to the light shining in through the curtain. For a second he seems to just be staring toward the clear liquid inside it, brows furrowed, and then you notice the sheen of sweat that's appeared on his forehead, and how his teeth are gritted and his entire body is shaking.

"Are you alright?" you ask.

A pained grunt and the barest nod of his head is all the response you get. In retrospect, it was a silly question. Using your full Powers without a Crown to amplify it requires intense focus. The one time you tried to do it, you just wanted to create a small light to find one of your old toys in the attic. Even that was so tiring that you could barely walk for the rest of the day.

After a moment, the saline solution inside the syringe begins to bubble as its colour changes to a dull off-white. Hippok unclenches his teeth and, panting, puts the syringe on the table. "That was," he says between breaths, "Worse than I was expecting. Change of... plan... We'll start with... two and... see how that goes."

"Okay," you say. You weren't exactly looking forward to four injections. Hopefully this means you can get all of this over with quicker.

By the time Hippok's done transmuting the contents of the second syringe to a viscous, green substance he looks dead on his feet. You stand up, no real plan for what to do apart from maybe help him to sit down on the sofa, but he flaps his hands at you in a floppy approximation of a 'stay there' gesture. "No, don't," he says, "That was the hardest bit. We're nearly done." He reaches his empty hand out to your neck, feeling for a pulse. "There's probably no sane reason for why a blind man should be doing this," he says with a tired chuckle. After a moment, when he's presumably found whatever vein he's looking for, he holds the syringe against your neck. "So, this is going to make your body fix itself rather rapidly, but that's not something your body can do naturally. You're going to feel awful while it's taking place."

"Just get on with it," you say.

The injections don't hurt as bad as you thought. It's sort of like accidentally pricking yourself with a sewing needle. After the first one, you turn to look behind you and your brother is nowhere to be seen. When the second one is done, you just think, _Is that it?_

When he's done, Hippok takes a step backwards, stumbles over the coffee table, and falls into a heap onto the sofa.

"Be careful!" you cry out, "Don't hurt yourself."

"I'll be fine," he says, "How are you feeling?

"Same as ever," you say, but as soon as you've said that a sudden a wave of exhaustion sweeps down you, blooming from the ache in your skull and enveloping your entire body. All of a sudden, you want nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep, but you know you can't. You need to get up. You need to get out of this apartment. You need to find Frohike and rescue the troll hiding from the Kindness.

Right now, you don't even have the energy to stand up. You try, and lift yourself half a foot off the chair before falling back down into it.

On the other side of the room, Hippok looks just as drained as you. "Are you feeling nauseous? Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm just... so tired."

"That's not surprising. Your body's in overdrive right now."

"So what do I do now?"

"What do you do? You sit and wait for your body to fix itself." After a few moments of silence, Hippok continues, "You know, my original plan was to pump you full of truth serum and make you reveal your identity."

“What?" you ask, every word an ordeal to say, "Why would you do that?"

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hippok says, “Maybe it’s my natural inclination as a Derse dreamer. Maybe it’s payment for services rendered. Maybe I just wanted to hurt you for taking my sight.”

“I didn’t take anything,” you spit out, “You could have closed your eyes or dropped that crossbow or something, but you didn’t.”

Hippok sighs and runs his claws across his scalp. “It’s all done now, anyway. Nothing we can do about it. I don’t suppose you’d tell me your name anyway?”

“Oh, go to hell, Mortwe.”

“I’m already there,” he replies, “I’ve been there ever since you burned my eyes out of my skull.” Your brain barely has time to begin processing that, vacillating somewhere between outrage, shock, a twinge of guilt and a heaping of what the hell -- before he adds, “No, sorry. That was out of line. You don’t deserve that. You were only doing what you felt you had to.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” you ask, “Because you feel you have to?”

Hippok just shakes his head and gives you a sad smile. "They say you can take a jadeblood out of the brooding caverns, but you can't take the caverns from the troll." He pauses for just long enough that when he starts talking again you jerk awake from a mini-doze you weren't aware of taking and says, "When I saw you out there, shivering and covered in blood and looking so small and frail, I knew I could never live with myself if I didn't help."

Well. You don’t know how to respond to that. Your eyelids are so heavy. You don’t want to go to sleep; you need to get back out there and help that troll, but your body feels like it’s floating in space.

You jerk awake, unaware of having fallen asleep. You twist your head round and are relieved to see that you’re still in Hippok’s living room. He’s not here any more, though. The TV is off and the only sound is the bustle of the city outside. Once again you float off without meaning to and fall into a dream of a golden city beyond the edge of the universe, whose bright spires reach up towards an eternal midday sky.


	4. [A1I1] La Bête Noire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This intermission's song is [Alfa Beach by Com Truise](https://youtu.be/yFB931QKH5E).

#### INTERMISSION ONE

~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [0B] opened memo “0914XX Debriefing” on board “La Bête Noire” --  
  
0B: Please tell me the two of you got out of Richmond Street okay!  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [45] responded to memo --  
  
45: I’m fine. I should be at the rendezvous point shortly.  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [58] responded to memo --  
  
58: Yes, same here!  
58: Everything’s going rather smoothly.  
58: Okay. No. This is so awful. We can’t keep on all talking in black!  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [58] changed their text colour --  
  
58: Ta-dah! Legibility improved!  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [0B] changed their text colour --  
  
0B: What a good idea! I'll clothe my words in pretty Prospit gold!  
45: Wow. Wonderful job, Aranea. What a wonderful idea to start haemotyping and jeopardising your secret identity.  
0B: Oh my days, Empath. What the hell!!  
58: It’s the colour of my suit, idiot!  
45: Your suit is ice blue, not tacky cerulean.  
45: Frankly I’m surprised you didn’t notice before you selected it.  
45: Why not start using your quirk while you’re at it? Staying away from the 8 key must be so “8oring” for you.  
0B: Why are you doing this? Shut up already!  
58: Yes, I concur. Do you ever pay attention what you’re saying, Kankri?  
0B: WILL YOU TWO NUMBSKULLS STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!  
0B: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?!?!?!?!?!  
0B: YOU DO NOT  
0B: YOU DO NOT  
0B: ***YOU DO NOT***  
0B: CALL A POWER BY THEIR REAL NAME  
0B: UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EVER!  
0B: HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT THE ANONYMITY EFFECT IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON YOUR COGNITION?  
0B: IF ANYTHING SHATTERS YOUR BELIEF THAT NOBODY KNOWS WHO YOU ARE BENEATH THE MASK  
0B: LIKE, OH, I DON’T KNOW, SOMEBODY REFERRING TO YOU **BY NAME** WHILE YOU’RE WEARING IT  
0B: IT WILL STOP WORKING AND YOU’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET IT BACK  
0B: CROWNS ARE SUPER FRAGILE HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS  
0B: UNLESS YOU WANT TO STOP BEING SUPERHEROES THE BOTH OF YOU WILL BLOODY WELL SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!  
58: You’re right, Overseer. That was dumb of me.  
58: Sorry, Empath, I shouldn’t have said that.  
45: I apologise also, Cryo Girl. I spoke without thinking of the potential harm my words could inflict.  
58: For the millionth time, I’m the Ice Spider now!  
45: Ah, yes. My mistake.  
45: The last thing I intended was to call you by a moniker you no longer identify with.  
45: Even if it is frankly rather difficult to keep up with the speed at which you change titles.  
45: Whilst I do of course make all possible efforts to remember the title you’re using at any given nanosecond, I must ask for your patience when I inevitably slip up.  
45: Also, you must understand that the ignorant public probably aren’t as invested in the security of your rather transient alter-egos as I am.  
45: I do worry that some people might consider your constant name changing a sign of immaturity.  
0B: For pity’s sake!!! GIVE IT A REST!!  
0B: Not for the first time tonight, I regret asking for your help!  
0B: All I need to know is this:  
0B: Are you both okay?  
0B: Where is La Bête Noire headed now?  
0B: And finally, did any innocent people get infected?  
45: We’re both fine. I got a claw to the shoulder but I’ve had worse.  
58: I’m currently tracking the beast now. It’s headed south towards the abandoned observatory.  
58: Ah. And it’s disappeared.  
0B: The same glitch as always?  
58: Yes.  
45: What glitch is that?  
58: For a second or two, it looks like there are thousands of the Beast, all over the city. And then it just vanishes.  
0B: And then it doesn’t show up for days! Which means we’re finally done!  
45: If it’s disappeared for good (for tonight), does that mean LBN’s lair is around there somewhere?  
0B: I don’t think so. I’ve been poring over a map of La Bête's sightings, both confirmed and not.  
0B: Even with a hefty weighting for the unconfirmed sightings, they’re all over the place.  
0B: I’m led to believe that La Bête Noire is either capable of teleportation, or it has some way of travelling unseen for vast distances at rapid speed.  
45: That doesn’t seem right. It’s never exhibited any of those abilities up close.  
0B: This is the issue!  
0B: I swear, the more we learn about it, the less we understand.  
0B: I’m beginning to doubt that La Bête is even a Power at all!  
58: That’s worrying.  
58: What do you think it might be?  
0B: Who knows. I have many theories, and they’re all as pleasant as they are substantial. :(  
45: Do you think it could have something to do with Lrd English?  
0B: Don’t be silly.  
0B: He’s not here yet. He won’t be here for generations. And when he does arrive, we’ll be more than capable of fending him off!  
58: Well what do you think it might be, then?  
0B: A chucklevoodoo that’s somehow escaped its master’s snares, perhaps?  
0B: But in that case, we would have previous documented sightings of La Bête being controlled by a Subjugglator.  
0B: It could possibly be an animal mutated by the Tyrian Rain. It’s rare but it happens.  
0B: The problem is that it’s just too far-fetched. What animal could become as strong as La Bête through mutation? A T-rex? A dragon? A musclebeast in the classical depiction?  
0B: No, that's much too improbable.  
0B: Alternatively, it could be part of a villain’s scheme, but that’s a preposterous idea.  
0B: Where are the demands? Where is the ransom note? Where is the despicable Dersite clamouring for attention? Why would an evil Power cause so much destruction and stay anonymous?  
58: I was thinking the same thing.  
58: Even the Cosmic Witch had her omnipresent mirages, and I don’t think anybody was able to work out what she really wanted.  
0B: Precisely.  
0B: Last but not least, it may be a new kind of weapon developed by the Alternian Empire.  
0B: The thought is too terrible to think about, but it doesn’t seem likely.  
0B: I’ve been monitoring Imperial transmissions for a while now and apart from inane posts to Alternian social media platforms, Trizza Tethis hasn’t made as much as a single public statement in almost a sweep.  
0B: I can’t fathom why she might enact a new plan to conquer Neo City and not make a real song and dance of it.  
0B: But I’m getting sidetracked. Point being: La Bête Noire makes no sense.  
0B: Which, in a slight way, leads to my last question: any infected? If so, how many and how severely?  
45: Not a one, thankfully.  
45: People are frightened, of course, but the worst anybody around here has right now is a headcold.  
58: I think our distraction worked a treat. The beast was so focused on us that it ignored everyone else.  
0B: Phew! What a relief!  
0B: Well, I do believe that’s all! Thank you very much, my lovelies!  
0B: Once again, I’m indebted to you for helping me to track what must be one of the only things in this city that I can’t directly monitor.  
45: Our pleasure.  
0B: What has NOT been a pleasure is working with the two of you!  
0B: Do not feel offended if I never call upon either of you again until you can prove you’ve cleaned up your respective acts!  
0B: If I ever hear you mention each others’ real names again, I will have no choice but to set Miss Miracle on you!  
45: :(  
58: :(  
58: Sorry.  
0B: It’s quite alright. I know you have it in you to improve.  
0B: And with that, I bid you adieu. Sleep well, my darlings.  
0B: And don't forget to delete your chatlogs when you're done!  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [0B] closed memo --  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~

#### END OF INTERMISSION ONE


	5. [A1C4] Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **Aid from an Unexpected Ally**.
> 
> This chapter's song is [Skaian Birth by Mark Hadley](https://youtu.be/pEtclU-Tdck), from [Song of Skaia](https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/album/song-of-skaia).

You drift in and out of sleep like a ship on stormy waters.

You're woken by a clink as Hippok sets a glass of water on the coffee table in front of you. Your mouth is full of sand, but you can barely mumble your thanks before you're off again.

The next time you wake up, you're brought round by the sound of engines whirring outside. Something on the other side of the window is projecting a familiar, arrowhead-shaped shadow through the curtain and onto the floor, but you're more concerned about the fast, throbbing ache that's about to split your skull in two. The exhaustion drags you back under before you can pay too much attention to the shadow or your aching head.

Your dreams are much more pleasant. You wake in your room on Prospit, tucked under the covers of your bed and feeling like a million bucks. Nothing hurts here. Untethered from all the pain and stress of your waking self, you swing your legs over the side and float to the ground with a smile on your face. Your room here is pretty much the same as your real one, but everything is bathed in warm light. Only the top bunk of your bed is in here, and while it used to bother you that it floats in mid-air without a bottom bunk to support it, you've long since stopped giving it any thought. Besides, you can float here as well. What's the point in critiquing the logic of your dreams?

You slip out of your open window and into the brilliant midday sky to fly amongst the city's ancient towers. The plain white mask and flower crown of your suit are still on your head, but the rest of your clothes have been replaced by yellow-gold robes that rustle in the breeze. There's nothing but unspoilt blue sky above you and golden city below, separated by an ink-black horizon. You revel in this sense of freedom, unlike anything you could possibly get whilst awake, and you soar around the city's tall steeples and rooftop gardens giggling with joy.

As beautiful as the city is, it doesn't escape your notice that there's not a single other person in sight. You try not to let it get to you, but as you meander through art galleries and hedge mazes that should be full of people but aren't, you can't help but feel a little overcome by a kind of melancholy sadness, knowing that you'll never be able to share this with anyone else.

That's why, when during one of these dreams, you spot a troll girl standing on a balcony at the top of a tower, it throws you for such a loop. You hover in place as you stare at her, completely unable to get your head round the fact that there's another actual person here. This city's always been so still and empty up until now! It just doesn't make any sense!

As you stare gormlessly at the troll, she lifts her head up and locks eyes with you for a fleeting moment. She's stunningly pretty, with long eyelashes, tall, wavy horns like wriggling snakes and white hair that falls around her face in elegant curls. The golden attire that she's wearing is almost identical to what you've got on, except for the clunky grey boots on her feet that are far too large to be comfortable. Your eyes meet for just a second, and then a huge grin blooms across her face and she starts jumping up and down with delight.

"Yoohoo!" she calls, waving at you with both arms, "Over here, darling!" You point to yourself, at a loss for words and everything else. She nods, so you drift a little closer. As you reach her balcony, she comes over to rest a hand on the balustrade. "Hello, Knight of Light," she says, "I've been waiting for you to find me."

You're... kind of floored by that statement. There's a lot in it that you're going to need to work through. You start with the basics. "Do I know you?"

"Not at all," the troll says, "We've never had the pleasure to meet before today. But your sidekick told me about what you've been doing tonight and I knew I just had to introduce myself."

Your head is spinning. Everything this girl says raises new questions and you're having trouble keeping up. "Who even are you?" you ask, and you're certain that's not the most important question right now but you need answers.

"Oh, yes, forgive my rudeness. You may call me the Overseer. I... how should I put this." You wait politely as she taps a finger against her lips and hums. She's so animated. The way she moves, the smile on her face: everything about her is filled with this fluid, graceful ease. Eventually she continues: "I am the Overseer," she says, "I use my powers of functional omniscience to help coordinate the heroes of Neo City in their efforts against their villainous foes."

"Functional omniscience?" you ask, "What's that?" That specific phrase sets off warning bells in your head. You can't quite put your finger on why, but you recognise it from somewhere, and a small part of your brain is screaming that something's not quite right.

"It means that I'm not actually omniscient," the Overseer says, giving you a coy smile, "I'm just very good at pretending."

"Right," you say. That didn't help at all. "If you're a Power then where's your mask?"

"I don't have a use for one of those things. I'm somewhat of a loner, you see. Nobody will be looking upon this face any time soon."

"But I'm looking at you right now."

"And when you wake up, your memories will be as fuzzy and indistinct as any other dream you've ever had. Which," and then the Overseer claps her hands, "Is as good a segue as any, because I have some urgent information to share with you. Please, have a seat."

The Overseer waves her hands towards the marble floor at her feet and it surges up like a fountain, rippling and contorting to form a cute little table with a granite surface and elegant, wrought iron legs. Two metal chairs flow up from the ground either side of it, complete with plush cushions, and the Overseer delicately perches herself on one. You float over the railing, set your feet down on the floor and tentatively take the seat opposite her. If you're taking your time about it, that's just because you have absolutely no idea what the Overseer's about to do. You're not threatened by her or anything, but you can't help feel wary about something. If only you didn't have this stupid amnesia...

"Would you care for some tea?" the Overseer asks, shaking you out of that particular train of thought.

"I guess-" You blink mid-sentence to find yourself holding a little china cup and a fragrant-smelling teapot with flowers stencilled on it, heavy with the weight of water. You drop them in shock -- or at least, you let go of them. They don't spill, or even move from where they're hanging in the air. When the Overseer waves a hand they calmly float down onto the table.

"Oh, bother! I do apologise for giving you a fright," she says, reaching over to pour your tea for you. "I forget that other people aren't accustomed to how this all works. You see, I spend most of my time here on Prospit. Most of my interactions in the real world are done through the medium of a computer screen. Apart from my brother and my caretaker I really am somewhat of a recluse."

"How are you doing all of this? Is this your Power?"

The Overseer nods. "Everybody's dreams of Prospit are kept separate. That's by design, of course. Could you imagine how terrible it would be if you could just waltz over and interfere with anybody's dreams? Well I, under very specific conditions and in very specific ways, have the power to ignore that rule."

"That's a really cool Power. Can you go to Derse too?"

The Overseer visibly shudders. "Oh, what an awful idea," she says, "I couldn't begin to imagine any reason I would want to go _there_. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Knight of Light, your waking self is currently in terrible danger."

"What?" You rise to your feet immediately. "What's going on? What's happening to me? Why am I here drinking tea if I'm in danger?"

"Calm down," the Overseer says, flustered, "It's alright. We're in your dreams so we have all the time in the world. I didn't mean to blurt that out so suddenly, I just wanted to let you know right away."

"Right." You sit back down, mostly because you don't actually know what you need to do to wake up. Rationally you suspect you just need to pinch yourself, but you'd feel like an absolute fool if you tried to do it and nothing happened. "Tell me what's going on then."

"Nothing yet. But I'm afraid the Poisoner lied to you. You're not safe in his care at all. Unbeknownst to you, he injected you with some kind of truth serum. As we sleep, the despicable Starstorm is on his way to the Poisoner's hive. The two of them intend to extract your true name from you by force, and then sell you to the Midnight Crew."

"What? That's absurd! That doesn't make any sense!"

The Overseer tilts her head to one side. "It doesn't?"

"No!" You set your cup of un-drunk tea down on the table. "Before I fell asleep, I had a conversation with Hippok. He... he told me that he was thinking of doing that, but he changed his mind. Why would he tell me what his plans supposedly were if he did actually intend to go through with them?"

"I admit, that is somewhat perplexing," the Overseer says, fidgeting in her seat, "But I'm afraid that whatever reason he had is immaterial."

"Look," you say, "I really don't want to be rude. It's just that this is a bit of a shock, that's all. Can you prove any of this?"

The Overseer nods, mouth set in a grim line. "I most certainly can. Would you mind telling me your real name?"

You open your mouth without even thinking. Before the first syllable tumbles off your tongue, the Overseer jumps up from where she's sitting. She reaches over the table and clamps her hand firmly over your mouth to muffle your words.

When you stop talking, she pulls her hand away from your mouth. "Do you believe me now, Knight?" she asks, an almost apologetic look on her face.

You just sit there, overwhelmed with shock.

Of course you took Hippok's words at face value. Why would he possibly hold a grudge against the girl who stole his sight?

You stand up, chair legs screeching against the floor, and march over to the balcony. You grip the railing with both hands and wow, you're actually shaking with fury right now. How dare he? He said he'd changed, that he was reformed. You were naïve enough to trust him and he betrayed you in the most underhanded way imaginable.

Behind you, you hear the scrape of metal against stone as the Overseer rises from her seat. "Are you alright, Knight?" she asks.

"Before I fell asleep, he asked me what my name was," you reply, "And I told him to go to hell. Was he just seeing if his serum had fully kicked in yet? Why didn't I suspect him of anything? I should have known better."

"Oh, please don't feel too bad," the Overseer says. She walks up behind you and puts a hand on your shoulder. "The Poisoner is a remorseless monster. It's people like you who have a duty to stand up to him. Not right now, of course. I do believe you have a more urgent mission to accomplish."

You whirl round in shock. "The troll on the run from the Kindness!" you shout, clutching at your hair, "How could I have forgotten him? Here I am, fast asleep and running my mouth off in my dreams when there's still someone out there who needs my help."

"It's alright, Knight," the Overseer responds, taking hold of your forearms and pulling your hands down to your sides, "You see, this is exactly why I had to get in contact with you. You might be in a little bit of a pickle right now, but I want to help you. The city is in a bad way. If you're truly willing to help people then I want to lend you as much assistance as you need."

"Alright," you say, leaning backwards against the balustrade, "What can you do?"

"Um, not a whole lot, actually," the Overseer says with a sigh. "I have a frustratingly limited capacity to interact with the waking world. I've informed the Seer of how to find the troll you're searching for, but the most that I can actually do is wake you up before Starstorm gets there. Everything else rests on your shoulders."

"That's fine," you say, "Just tell me what you need me to do."

"Oh, you just need to do what you normally do. I'm explaining the situation to your Seer in the waking world right now so you won't have to worry about forgetting anything. All that is required of you is your best. Are you up to that?"

When you nod at the Overseer she grins at you and then turns her attention to the lightless horizon. "Then let's not waste any more time. Are you ready, Knight of Light?"

"I am," you say.

The Overseer lifts her free hand and reaches up to your forehead. You pull back out of instinct, but she grips your hand tightly and pulls you towards her. When her index finger lands between your eyebrows, everything begins to fade. You barely feel as the Overseer pushes you over the balustrade. You plummet towards the golden city, wind howling past your ears, but it's as if someone else is falling and you're just watching the whole thing from the other end of a rapidly darkening tunnel.


	6. [A1C5] Reawakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **Back to Reality**.
> 
> This chapter's song is [The Game of Love by Daft Punk](https://youtu.be/ajGKWk0auOc).

You shiver awake, shuddering like someone's dipped your toes in icy water. Everything is drowning in blue light and it stings your eyes after the soft, golden shine of Prospit's towers. Your brain feels like it's full of cotton and you have no idea where you are or what you're doing.

When you see Hippok sprawled along the sofa across from you, snoring softly with his eyes screwed shut, all the disparate and confusing pieces of reality make sense again. Your peaceful, post-nap reverie is shattered to pieces when you remember what the Overseer told you: you're in danger here. Starstorm could arrive at any moment and you're not going to pretend for a second that you could hold your own against him.

You raise yourself up off the chair you've been napping on, as softly as you can so as not to wake Hippok, all the while mentally cursing this lousy day you've been having. You can hardly believe yourself. The Ariborn with his newly-inherited powers is still out there and here you are, literally sleeping on the job. Some saviour you've been tonight, after... after...

Damn. Your memories of tonight's events are still frustratingly blank. Either two syringes worth of Hippok's miracle cure wasn't enough to undo the damage to your memory, or it's beyond his powers to fix. You figure for a second that maybe he didn't actually try to cure you... but then it dawns on you that you no longer ache like you fell off the top of city hall tower, so that's something. You almost didn't notice because it feels like you never got hurt in the first place.

You can't think of a single reason why Hippok would restore you to fighting fitness if he was just trying to lure you into a trap, but it doesn't matter right now. There are more important things at stake.

You walk to the door, open it as slowly and silently as you can, and step out into the hallway. The moment the latch clicks shut, the Overseer's voice echoes through your mind. "Thank goodness you're finally awake! Talk about cutting it fine! I have been biting my nails to the quick waiting for you to return to the waking world."

"What-" you begin to ask aloud, but you're cut off by a shushing noise that rushes through your skull like an avalanche.

"Sssh! Not so loudly! It is in your interests to keep the Poisoner from waking."

"Alright then," you whisper, "What are you talking about?"

"I don't get what you mean," the Overseer replies, voice echoing through your mind.

"What I mean is how long have you been waiting for me to wake up? It's been like two minutes since we spoke." Well, this is just great. You're talking to yourself now. You must never let Jude know this happened. You don't think you could ever live it down.

"From your perspective, yes. But you were asleep. In the real world, you left Prospit two hours ago."

"Two hours?!" you hiss, clasping your hands over your mouth because wow, even for a whisper that was way too loud. "I thought you said Starstorm was on his way," you whisper at a much more furtive volume.

"Quite so. It's almost two in the morning now. So you understand the need for you to abscond as soon as you can? Quickly, out through the kitchen window and up the fire escape. One of your brother's birds is awaiting you up on the roof."

You obey the voice in your head and walk through to the kitchen. Your mouth is still drier than the wasteland but you don't have time to stop for a drink. You remember the glass of water that Hippok put down for you in his living room... but was that really water? There could have been anything in that glass, and earlier you were prepared to drink it in one gulp like an idiot.

You can't be having these thoughts now. You unlock the window, slide it up and climb back out into the night.

Ascending the rest of the fire escape is significantly easier now that your body isn't as broken as it was before. There's a faint whirring sound in the air as you climb, and it becomes louder and clearer until you're nearly at the top. As you reach the final steps you see the sleek, copper-coloured form of Frohike hovering above the building. Your brother's favourite out of the drones he's created, it's sharp and pointy: a little bit like a stealth bomber built out of scrap parts but only the size of a fridge. Well, "only." Even though it's technically smaller than a real airplane it still looks far too large to have any sort of lift. Even now, watching it hover in the air, you can't quite understand how it doesn't just plummet straight down to the concrete.

When you reach the top, you realise the drone is pointing the other way. "I'm here," you say, and Frohike rotates like a spinning top.

"Finally! Overseer said you were waking up. Excessive waiting had me worried," Jude's voice says. Through Frohike's speakers, he sounds so tinny and artificial that you can barely recognise him. "Your eyes are strange."

"My eyes?" you repeat.

"Glowing bright yellow. When you move your head they leave a little trail of light."

The Overseer's voice echoes through your mind again. "That's me," she says, "It's how I'm able to talk with you like this."

"Cancel last question, Overseer explaining it to me now," Jude says.

"Is she in your head too?" you ask.

"Negative. She hacked into Langly's transmission sub-routines. Uhhh, I think. Whatever she did so subtle I can't tell what changed. Scared at first, but she's really friendly. Nice to have someone on our side for a change."

"Agreed," you say, "She says she told you where we'll find the Ariborn."

"Correct. Good news or bad news first?"

"The bad news. Let's get it out of the way."

"Correct choice. Important development: we need to stop calling our target by his symbol name. Although there's no way of tracking which trolls have what symbols, anonymity still of paramount importance. Overseer reckons determined party could figure it out."

You cast your mind back to when you were in Hippok's apartment. As far as you can tell, you never told him what sign the troll had... or, indeed, that you were rescuing a troll at all. That's some relief, you suppose. "Okay, got it. Is that all the bad news?"

"Negative. In brief, our target is now far away. Over by the south wall."

"Urgh, that's ages away. I'll have to hitch a ride. Anything else?"

"Only good news now. Our target was able to evade the Kindness."

"That's great! So he's safe, then?"

"Not quite. Individuals aligned with Kindness currently seeking him out. Should be less dangerous than facing Kindness directly but still significant challenge due to numerical disadvantage."

"Oh, great" you say, dragging your hands down your face, "I forgot those people existed. How awful do they have to be to see what the Kindness is doing and think, 'Yes, torturing innocent people, now that's something I can support'?"

The Overseer's voice echoes through your mind again. "Don't worry," she says, "They're no match for you and your talents."

"That's not what I'm worried about," you say aloud. Welp, so much for not letting Jude witness you talking to yourself. "It's just so frustrating having to deal with all of these problems that keep coming up."

"I'm afraid that's the way things are at the moment. But what you're doing is the first step to changing things for the better."

"If you say so."

"Oh, I know so. Now, I'm going to have to leave you with that. There are other matters across the city that require my attention. But I wish you the very best of luck! Take care, darling. I'll check in later to see how it's going."

"Yeah, thanks."

"Talking to Overseer?" Jude asks.

"Yes," you reply with only minor hesitation. "She's left, so we're on our own now."

"Your eyes have stopped glowing. This is as good a time as any to make our move. Starstorm could be be here any minute."

You nod. "Let's go, then."

"Acknowledged. Hang onto Frohike. I'll lower you to the ground and we'll find a SkaiaCorp truck heading south."


	7. [A1C6] Rebuker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **In Search of the Escapee**.
> 
> This chapter's song is [1987 by Lucy in Disguise](https://youtu.be/xo6wBPpfHL0).

You cling to the back of a driverless SkaiaCorp truck as it races down the empty freeway that connects the city from north to south. With your hands clenched around the hinges of the truck's back doors and your feet hooked in the little gap behind the footstep, you're actually pretty secure even if you are going way faster than anything could have prepared you for. It's a surprisingly convenient way to travel as long as you don't think about what might happen if you lose your grip. The trucks aren't monitored in any detail as long as they arrive at their destination, and your white suit provides good camouflage against the truck -- although that doesn't matter an awful lot as you're going much too fast to need to worry about anybody spotting you.

Right now, Frohike is currently hovering over the back of the truck, just a few inches above the roof. You have no idea what it is that Jude actually does to the truck's systems but you're grateful nonetheless. At first when you started doing this you'd just wait on an overpass for a lorry to drive along beneath you and hope that it takes you in the right direction. Now Jude just finds the closest truck going the right way, hacks into it, diverts it towards you, and you're off in minutes.

"This truck's heading to the observatory depot so you have to jump down when it takes the off-ramp," Jude says, but you can barely hear what he's saying. Although the roads are empty due to curfew, your brother's tinny, distorted voice is almost imperceptible, masked by the dull roar of the truck's wheels against tarmac and the buzzing drone of Frohike's engines. In any case, you don't bother to shout a reply. You've done this plenty of times before. You know what you're doing.

The buildings either side of the freeway start to change as you travel south, the high-rise apartments transforming first into skyscrapers and then into squat office blocks as you speed through the various districts of southern Neo City. When you reach the abandoned districts near the wall, the difference is as clear as night and day. The buildings get a little shorter and a little browner, crusted with graffiti and swarmed by construction equipment that hasn't been used to build anything for a long time. Cranes hang in place over the bare shells of unfinished buildings, mostly dark with the occasional flickers of light and occupancy. This part of the city is abandoned in name only, after all. You try not to take it for granted that you don't have to live all the way out here with the trolls and the fugitives.

The sign for the off-ramp whizzes past so quickly that you nearly miss it, and you're not about to let go of the truck to turn around and double-check. "Was that it?" you shout.

Jude doesn't reply, but the buzzing of Frohike's engine drifts over your head, sweeping round behind you and arriving by your right hand side. That's your cue. The truck lurches as it turns right onto the off-ramp, and as it turns left to swing under the freeway you unhook your feet from the stand and leap off the truck. For a few seconds you're weightless and falling, arms up high as you plunge through the air, but Frohike's large shadow quickly spreads over you as cold metal knocks your fingertips. You grab hold of the drone's chassis and it gently lowers you to the ground, the whirr of its engines increasing in pitch as it struggles to accomodate the added weight of a teenage girl.

You let go slightly higher than you'd meant to and your stomach drops as you plummet the remaining few feet. You try to stick the landing with a sideways roll but the attempt goes terribly. Instead of landing on your feet you collapse in an awkward heap on the ground by one of the off-ramp's pillars.

Frohike buzzes down to you with all the grace of a steel girder. "Are you alright?" Jude asks.

"I'm fine," you say, picking yourself back up and straightening your Crown, "Just a bumpy landing. It's no big deal."

"Please be more careful. Can't have you breaking your legs after everything else that's happened tonight."

"I said I'm fine. You don't have to nag."

"Have to make you realise how weird you are for willingly doing this."

"But it's fun!" The fact that you're currently rubbing your back where you landed probably isn't helping you to make your point, though. Oof, you can already tell that's going to bruise. "At least, it is when I land properly."

"Shame neither of us can fly or teleport."

"I guess that would be easier," you say with a shrug, "But would that be as fun? I think not."

"It's not about having fun," Jude grumbles, "It's about helping people."

"So there's no harm in trying to have fun _while_ I'm helping people, right? Not every night's quite as intense as this one, after all. Anyway, what's the time?"

"Half past two."

"Really? Wow, that was way quicker than I expected. That's a relief." Not that it really matters, you guess. With the timeline in such a mess, you really had very little control over how long this journey took. It only took you about twenty minutes this time, but the next time you come this way it might take an hour or more.

"Agreed," Joey replies, oblivious to your internal monologue, "It's good that we're getting this done quickly. Don't want the Lancer picking up your trail."

You roll your eyes. "Seer, please, not now."

"I'm being serious. The Lancer has eyes and ears all across the city."

"The Lancer doesn't even exist! It's not even a conspiracy theory! It's just a dumb ghost story to scare people."

"You're missing the big picture. Just like what I've been trying to tell you about the black helicopters--"

"--Oh, wow, no," you say with a groan as you bury your head in your hands. "I'm not in the mood for--"

"--An incredibly malicious plot of coercion and intimidation--"

"--I don't ever want to hear about this again. No--"

"--Misinformation and willing disbelief a vital part of their plan--"

"--Never, never, never again, never--"

"--an Epsilon-level conspiracy, Knight--"

"--Uuurgh." You start walking, wishing you'd never opened your mouth. You were only going to say that you'd feel relieved to know you could rescue the Ariborn and be back before anyone noticed you were gone. Which, depending on if it's Roxy or Pa who gets home first tomorrow might mean you actually have a lot of time anyway. But in any case, that was all you meant. You didn't intend to open Jude's floodgates. He's your brother and you love him, but sometimes he's a lot to put up with.

At least it's easy to find your way out here. That's one thing to be thankful about. You're so close to the south wall that you can see the observatory tower in the distance, sticking up into the sky like a nail hammered out from underneath the ground. Jude knows where you need to be going so you plan to just walk south until he steers you in a different direction. Hopefully he'll have shut up about black helicopters and fluoridated water by then.

You catch yourself feeling kind of guilty for thinking that. Even though Jude can exasperate you with his interests sometimes, you're grateful for all the help he gives you and you're immensely reassured just to know that he's keeping an eye on you. There's not a lot he can do from the other side of the city, but you're feeling especially vulnerable with the gaps in your memory and it's nice to know that you're not alone.

As you walk, the entire city gets older and more decrepit around you. Out here the streetlights are missing their bulbs, the alleyways are so full of clutter that you have to climb over the dumpsters and discarded thermal hulls to make any progress, and everything metal that isn't rusted has been stripped for parts. After walking past the second or third burned out skeleton of a building you turn to Frohike and ask, "How much further do we have to go?"

After a few seconds of silence, Jude replies. "Overseer says we're nearly at our location. Round this corner and then another turn at five hundred yards and we're there."

"Cool." You turn the corner onto a street that could be anywhere in the city. "Say," you ask to break the monotony, "How does the Overseer know where to go anyway?"

"She has the address of the apartment where the Ari... uh, where our target last showed on her monitoring systems. That was about an hour ago."

"Monitoring systems? What, does she have cameras everywhere or something?"

"Or something. Already tried asking her. She won't tell me how her Power works. Says it's top secret."

"Pfft, that must be torture for you. Don't tell me, you think she's secretly working for the Lancer, luring us into a trap?"

Jude doesn't respond to that. The pause drags on for a few seconds too long and you're keenly aware of it. Desperate to stop him from spouting off about lizard people or whatever, you spin on your heels to face Frohike. "That was a joke," you say, "Seriously, I was kidding. Please don't make a big deal out of that."

"Wait," Jude says, interrupting you, "Look up there." Frohike tilts upwards and you turn back around. You follow the line of its nose cone and see a grimy, dilapidated tenement building off in the distance, nearly hidden behind the skeletal frame of a high-rise office block. One apartment on the second floor from the top has the lights on, in stark relief to the rest of the neighbourhood.

"I see it," you say, "Is that the place?"

"That's right. That apartment with the lights on. How are you going to do this? Just walk up and knock on the front door?"

"That's the plan."

Getting to the building is the easy part. Actually getting inside is another matter entirely. You circle it a couple of times but it seems that someone's gone to great lengths to ensure you can't just get in through the front door, or by any other way for that matter. The main entrance is covered by a shutter that's bolted to the ground, the back entrance is chained up and all the other windows and doors are either boarded or bricked up. Sure, you could prise the boards off a window frame and smash your way in, but that would create an awful lot of noise and gather far more attention than you're happy with.

This is fine! It's not an issue. It's just... a puzzle you haven't solved yet. An extremely frustrating puzzle that's stopping you from reaching someone who desperately needs your help; the latest tedious and unnecessary obstacle in a long line of other tedious and unnecessary obstacles that you really don't have time for right now. But there's got to be a solution.

You give the building another loop, hoping to spot something you missed the last few times. What do you know, when you're standing at the other side of the tenement building, you notice a small strip of what might be wood on the roof of the building, bridging the gap between it and the unfinished office building next door. It's worryingly high up and it's narrowness attribute doesn't really fill you with confidence... But yeah, if you can get to the top of the office block, you think it should be a cinch to get across. The only issue is _how_ you're going to get up there, and your initial investigations don't look promising. You walk over to the office building and peer through an empty hole where a window should be. You see right away that where the stairs are meant to be is just a collapsed pile of concrete. You tilt your head back and huff in frustration... and there you go. A short way above your head is a rusty gutter pipe that snakes its way up to the roof. It's not the sturdiest thing you've seen, but you don't weigh all that much. You're sure it'll hold your weight. ...Probably.

You clamber into the empty window, leap upwards and grab hold of the bottom of the pipe with both hands. The whole thing makes a worrying squeal and you have to squint to stop the rusty flakes that you dislodge with your hands from falling into your eyes.

"What are you doing?" Jude asks from behind you.

You let go with one hand so that you can twist round to look at Frohike. "There's a walkway up between this building and the one we want to be on. If I can get up there, walking across should be easy."

Frohike hovers off to the side and you focus on gaining some proper altitude. You climb the pipe, but it's really slow going! Your fingers keep slipping on the rusty, rain-slick metal because there aren't any actual hand-holds apart from the tiny fixtures that bracket it to the wall.

More whirring behind you. "Are you sure about this?" Jude asks, "It's just a plank of wood up there. It doesn't look stable."

"Shut up. It'll be fine," you say with a bit more force than you intended.

Jude doesn't say anything for a moment. "Just trying to help," he eventually says sullenly.

"Sorry," you say, "I shouldn't have snapped. I just... I have no idea how to get into that apartment block. This is the only way I can see to do this and I have to make it work."

"It's okay. I'll take a look and see if there's any other ways up."

"Thanks, that would be great. You know what would be nice, though? If I could just hang on to Frohike and have you lift me up to the roof."

"Doesn't work that way. Not enough thrust in Frohike's engines to increase your altitude. Entirely different beast to slowing your descent."

"I know, I know. But you should really get that thing's engines upgraded."

"Yeah, right, cause it's that easy. Next time the Mechanist sticks a tracking device in one of my birds, I'll ask him to give the engines a little tune-up while he's at it."

"Good idea. I mean, you still don't know where Byers is, do you?"

"No," Jude says with a sigh that's crackly with static, "Won't hide from me forever, though."

Frohike whizzes off and you focus on ascending to the roof, but it's a lot harder to climb this thin, slippery pipe than you originally thought it would be. You're breathing heavily and your arms feel like they're about to pop out of their sockets. What makes it worse is when you're nearly at the top and you realise that the pipe doesn't even reach all the way to the roof! It comes to an abrupt end just a few feet short with a smooth, level cut that makes you think somebody's taken a saw to it.

You climb as high as you can, and fortunately you can just grip the edge of the roof with your fingertips. With intense effort you pull yourself up over the edge and flop onto the rough, flat concrete roof. After all the energy you've expended getting this far, that last bit feels like it took everything out of you. You spend a few moments to just lie there with your eyes closed, sucking in air like a vacuum cleaner, idly listening to Frohike buzzing around. Eventually you begin begin to feel like you've spent far too long lying down, so you force your eyes back open and haul yourself to your feet. You're still tired to your core but at least you're upright, so that's something.

To your left, by the far edge of the building, Frohike is floating near where the wooden platform should be, and you can just about hear Jude muttering agitatedly to himself. You walk over and immediately see why. The wooden beam spanning the gap between the building you're currently on and the one you want to be on is even narrower and more precarious than it looked at ground level. It's barely wide enough for you to walk by putting one foot in front of the other; not that you would ever want to, as every few seconds the wind causes it to shift and wobble. And the worst thing is that it's not even secured to the roof by anything, so there's nothing to stop someone from coming along and tipping you off. Even with your ballerina training and the grace and balance you inherited from your mom, it's going to be quite a challenge to cross this gap.

You place one foot on the beam to test it, ignoring your brother's cry of alarm. It doesn't feel like a bridge. It feels like a see-saw. You wobble your foot a little and are alarmed by the amount of give this thing has. Really, it's a wonder it hasn't fallen down already. The wood is rotten and cracking in places, and you don't see how it could support anyone's weight. This was such a terrible idea.

"If you know what's good for you, you won't take another step," says a scratchy, nasally voice. When you look up, you see the silhouette of a troll who wasn't there ten seconds ago, standing at the other end of the wooden plank with one foot resting on it just like you. You can't make out any details because his form is obscured by the vivid yellow and purple light that spills out of his eyes, shining like the headlamps of a car with enough light to dazzle you.

"Where did he come from?" Jude says in a stage whisper, although it's still pretty hard to hear because of how loud Frohike is. "How did we not spot someone whose eyes glow in the dark?"

"I've been watching you skulk around here for the past fifteen minutes, you creep," the troll continues, "Now tell me what you're doing before I..." The troll falls silent mid-sentence and he tilts his head at you. "Waaaait," he eventually says, "I think I know who you are. You're the Nightlight, aren't you?"

"Knight _of_ Light," you say with a huff. You switch to your infrared vision to try and get a better look at this guy. He's too far away for it to help much, but at least you can see the guy's silhouette properly. He looks to be about as old as you, but you're aware that you don't know enough trolls to make any kind of accurate judgement of his age. He's dressed in a tee shirt, baggy jeans and a pair of ratty sneakers. There's a Crown of jagged metal spikes on his head which encircles four horns that stick out of his skull. With the two sets of horns and the coloured eyes, he must be a goldblood. The only other goldblood you've ever met is Mr. Captor who works with your Pa, but he's nothing like the kid standing on the other building.

"Night light, light knight, whatever," the troll says, "It's all the same anyway. Now tell me what you're doing here."

"I'm looking for someone," you shout back, "A burgundy troll with big, curvy horns. He was out in the Tyrian Rain for hours last night and I'm worried about him."

"And why do you want to know where he went?"

"Wait, you mean you've seen him? Please, if he's gone somewhere you have to tell me. He's in a lot of danger."

"Danger? Not likely. I've seen his new Power in action. The Kindness doesn't have a chance."

"The Kindness is long gone! And now their weird, violent fanatics are looking for this troll and he's not going to be able to take them all on his own! I was barely able to get away and I saw them coming."

The goldblood looks like he's about to interrupt you, but when you say that his mouth snaps shut and he narrows his eyes, cutting the glaring headlamps to tiny slivers of light, "Show me your Power." he says.

It's an odd request, but you don't see any harm in obliging him. You put your hands together, palms facing forwards, and fire a blast of white light down to the ground. The troll's eyes go wide again. "Oh, for the pity of..." he says, throwing his hands in the air. "Right, sorry for the suspicion. I didn't realise you're the Power he was talking about when he said someone blasting beams of light helped him to get away. I guess you're more than just some kind of building-climbing loon."

"So you believe me now?"

The troll forcefully sighs. You can't hear it over the gap, but he exaggerates the motion so much that you see his entire body move. "Yeah, I believe you. I'm not a complete bulge-snorter."

"...A what?" You suddenly regret having asked. You know very little about troll biology and you feel like that phrase would create the kind of horrifying mental image that would never leave you.

"Never mind. Look, I'm fed up of having a conversation over this huge chasm. You're gonna have to come over."

"Alright," you say. You look down at the plank of wood. It's just as flimsy as it was a few minutes ago. "Uhh, you'll have to hold on while I work out how to get across, though."

"Aargh, no, don't be dumb, if you walk across that it'll snap and you'll splatter against the ground. Don't move a muscle, alright?" The troll spins on his heels and rushes off to a heavy metal door at the far end of the rooftop, yanking it open with great force and leaping down the steps beyond.

You step off the wooden plank, somewhat dumbfounded by this turn of events. "That was, uh, unexpected," you say more to yourself than to anyone in particular.

Frohike, who's been buzzing behind you this entire time, floats over beside you. "Stay on your guard," Jude says, "We have no idea what connection that troll has to our target, if any at all. Can't trust such unknown elements."

"I don't know, he seems alright. So long as he can help us find our guy, I don't see a problem."

"Problem is he was wearing a Crown. Be vigilant until you know what his Power is."

"Yeah, sure, will do."

The troll with the multicoloured eyes rushes back up the stairs, and his eyes are no longer too bright to look at. Without the extra illumination, you don't notice the troll walking behind him until they both step out into the night. She looks slightly older than the goldblood, and also somewhat taller. There's a mole beneath one corner of her mouth, her hair is pulled back behind long, straight horns that sweep backwards at the tips, and she's wearing a grey polo shirt, black trousers and thick black boots. There's also a chunky pair of goggles dangling around her neck, which strikes you as a somewhat impractical accessory in such dim light.

"I've brought my fellow co-conspirator here to get you across," the goldblood calls to you, "This method was actually all her idea."

He gestures to the other troll, who gives you a suspicious glance and whispers something to him. They have a quick, hushed conversation, with lots of emotive gestures from him and no movement at all from her. Her arms are tightly folded and her eyebrows are furrowed, giving her a stern, taciturn appearance. What did he call her? Co-conspirator? What a weird turn of phrase to use. You really don't think you'll ever properly understand trolls.

Eventually, the troll with the goggles -- you really need to give them nicknames -- looks somewhat satisfied, and she gives the other troll a curt nod. She steps towards the wooden plank and crouches down, laying her hands flat against it. Now that she's a little bit closer, you can see that she's wearing a crown as well; a slim tiara made out of delicately twisted rebar. You notice a flicker of concentration on the troll's face and slowly, starting from beneath her hands and spreading steadily outwards, the wooden plank is engulfed by liquid concrete, rapidly spreading out and cooling in the air. A long, sturdy footbridge quickly begins to form around the core of rotten wood, wide enough for two people to stand side-by-side. As the concrete reaches the side of the building you're standing on, it melds into the concrete that's already there, forming supportive arches beneath it.

"Wow. That's a really cool power," you say.

You take a single step onto the bridge but Goggles stands up, back as straight as an iron rod, and holds a hand out. "Off," she says. You meekly comply, one step at first and then another and another as she glares at you. When you're far away enough from the concrete bridge, she drops her hand, then with a sudden swirl of movement she thrusts both arms into the air and crosses them into an X shape. Rebar spikes burst out from the sides of the bridge, fast enough to startle you. They grow longer and longer, winding around each other until they coil back around themselves to form a waist-high railing on either side of the bridge. Finally satisfied with her handiwork, Goggles drops her arms, nods and takes a step back.

You walk across the bridge, marvelling at the impressive handiwork. It's so sturdy beneath your feet; nothing like the wooden plank that was there moments ago.

"That was so impressive," you tell Goggles when you're at the other side, "I think you've got one of the most unique Powers I've ever seen. How have I never heard of you before? What are you called?"

Goggles gives you the dirtiest look you've ever received, and that's when you realise what's been bugging you about her appearance, and that of Traffic Light as well (although Traffic Light is a terrible nickname). They're both Powers but neither of them are wearing masks. You shouldn't even be able to tell if they're troll or human but you can clearly discern their facial features. "I don't dabble in such silly things," Goggles says. "Funny names, preposterous outfits... They're nothing but immature diversions from matters of actual importance."

"Hey!" Her rude statement catches you so off guard that you find yourself scrambling for a coherent response.

"Pay her no mind, she's just blunt like that to everyone," says Strobelight (no, that won't do) with a dismissive wave of his hand. "She kinda has a point, though. It's you humans who make a big deal about your secret identities and all that. For us trolls, it's really not a big deal."

"But what about the secret police, or the Midnight Crew, or the Lancer?"

"Oh, be serious. The Lancer's nothing but fakey bullshit. Everybody knows that."

"Okay, true, but my point still stands. Everyone's out to get you if you're a Power. It doesn't make sense not to hide it."

Shiner (that's terrible too) just shrugs. "It's not a big deal for us. Those are all human problems. I mean, take the secret police. They only really care about you humans. If a troll goes on a rampage and kills people, nobody cares unless an innocent human gets in the way."

You're taken aback by the vitriol in his voice. "Uh, right," you say. "Anyway, that's not important. You need to tell me where that troll went."

"First, explain to us exactly why you're searching for him," says Goggles.

"We really don't have time for this," you tell her.

She just folds her arms again, fixing you with a venomous glare.

"Argh, fine! Look, that troll escaped from the Kindness, but he's still being chased by that monster's weird fanatics."

"You already said that earlier," says Glowstick (ugh, also awful), "But you didn't say why."

"I don't know. Nobody knows what they really want. I've tried to talk to one before but it was like arguing with a toddler. They don't make any sense and they don't care about anything but violence."

"And what will they do to our comrade if they find him?" asks Goggles.

"Again, I don't know. What I do know is that it's ludicrous how bloodthirsty they are. One of them attacked me earlier and I don't remember much but it was pretty bad."

"I bet. Your hair's all matted with blood."

"I'm not surprised. I haven't exactly had time to stop and look in the mirror. But see, I was able to get away. Your, uh, comrade, probably isn't thinking straight, so I don't know if he'll be able to. That's why I need to find him before the Kindness' fanatics do."

"What do you mean, not thinking straight?"

"It happens to everyone when they first inherit their Powers. How much do you remember of the day when you got yours?"

Goggles shakes her head. "Not a lot. My memories are kind of hazy but it was definitely stressful."

"Exactly," you say, "It's stressful, your body's full of energy it has no idea how to handle, and you're suddenly being chased by a glowing monster. It's only natural that you'd forget things in that sort of condition."

"Right," says Lightbulb (which is just as terrible as the other nicknames), "I've heard enough. I believe you, Nightlight, but I don't actually know where our comrade's gotten to. You'll have to speak with our captain."

"Who?"

"She's in charge of the two of us. Plus some other trolls you probably won't meet," he says with a nod of his head towards the heavy doors leading downstairs, "Right now she's downstairs in our safehouse. She'll be able to tell you how to find the troll you're looking for. Plus I told her I wouldn't take too long up here and she's probably getting kind of irate, ehehehe."

"Alright," you say with a nod, "Lead the way."


	8. [A1C7] Realisation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **Safe House.**
> 
> This chapter's song is [A Picture in Motion by Waveshaper](https://youtu.be/ZUlAytznxn4).

You follow the two trolls through the door and down a dark, unlit stairwell. For the umpteenth time tonight, you find yourself thanking your lucky stars for your infravision. "How you you cope down here?" you ask. "It's so dark."

"You were right," Goggles says to her co-conspirator, as if you're not even there. "Definitely a human. No troll would ask such a painfully obvious question."

"Don't be such a bitch," the troll with shining eyes replies, You've decided to call him 'Lollipop' for the time being, at least until you think of a better name. You fondly remember a store back in Hauntswitch that sold pink and yellow sweets, and his eyes remind you of them. It's as dumb a nickname as any of the others you've been coming up with, but you can't think of anything else.

Goggles makes an exasperated "tch" sound, but instead of replying she just walks faster.

The air around Lollipop begins to ripple like a heat haze. He kicks off the ground and begins to hover in mid air. Still floating forwards, he spins around to face you. "You see, us Alternians are nocturnal," he says with a casual nonchalance as if he wasn't explaining xenobiology while levitating. "Our eyes don't do well in bright lights and shit, so this is actually pretty much ideal. Even the neon lights outside are way brighter than anything we had back on Alternia."

"As if you can even remember what Alternia was like," Goggles says.

"Who asked you, nooksniffer" Lollipop says with a snarl. "Vikare's ancestor wrote tons about Alternia, so shut up and let me get on with the schoolfeeding."

You hastily rearrange your face into a less shocked expression as Lollipop turns back towards you. That was a pretty sudden outburst. You either do a good job or he doesn't notice, because he gives you a double thumbs up and a smile that doesn't show his teeth. "So yeah," he continues, "Sunlight bad, darkness good."

"Is that because-" you begin, and then your brain catches up with what your mouth is saying and _nope_ , that sentence is probably all kinds of awful and you definitely aren't finishing it out loud. It's really not like you to blurt things out without thinking them through like that. Is Hippok's truth serum still affecting you? That's an alarming thought. You have to be extra careful with what you say until it wears off, or else you might blow your secret identity by mistake. There are already two people who know your secret, and you're in no hurry for that number to get any higher.

"What is it?" Goggles asks.

"Nothing, nothing. Never mind."

Lollipop grins at you, revealing a mouth crammed full of sharp fangs. "You were about to say something _super_ xenophobic, weren't you?"

You can't help but falter and stop walking because wow, those fangs of his are scarily sharp. You remember reading in an encyclopaedia once that lots of animals used to bare their teeth as a threat, and you can't help but wonder if that's what's going on here. "Uhh... I..."

"Hah! I knew it! You're squirming like mad."

"I wasn't going to say it!"

"Yeah, whatever."

"I didn't mean anything by it. I wasn't trying to be rude, I was just thinking of a book I read once and nearly spoke without thinking."

Goggles huffs in irritation. Lollipop entirely ignores her, floating right into your personal space. He clasps his hands on your shoulders and says, "Chill the fuck out. It's fine. I'm not offended or anything. But, listen, you've got to tell me what you were going to say."

"I was going to say the reason you can't stand the sunlight is because it'll turn you to stone if it touches you," you blurt out, and then you clap your hands over your mouth because _oh no_ , you had been trying so hard not to actually say that out loud!

Lollipop lets go of your shoulders and studies your face. You swear, if your cheeks were burning any more they'd catch on fire. For a few seconds, neither of you move. Then, without warning, Lollipop suddenly starts cackling with laughter. It's so forceful that his entire body is doubled over and he's bobbing up and down in the middle of the hallway.

"I'm sorry!" you say, too taken aback to think of anything better. You were imagining a lot of possible reactions to what you said, but you could never have guessed that laughter could be one of them.

"Oh, dude, I haven't heard that one before," Lollipop says, wiping an imaginary tear from the corner of one eye as he straightens up. "That's a good one. I'm gonna be telling that one to my spademate when I see him next."

You want to ask what a spademate is, but you notice Goggles glaring at you out of the corner of one eye and quickly decide against it. Her abrasive rudeness is really starting to get to you. This entire time, she's been leaning against a wall with her arms folded, glaring at the middle distance as if it was personally responsible for the current turn of events. When you look her way, she pushes away from the wall and shoots the both of you with a stony glare. "Can we keep going now?" she asks, but she's already started to walk off.

"Sure, sure, wait up," Lollipop calls He gives you one last thumbs up and floats off. You follow after him, picking up your pace to catch up.

As the three of you walk along the corridor, you occasionally hear faint noises coming from behind the doors you pass. The first few times it happens, you ignore them as the sounds of an abandoned building settling in the night, but it quickly becomes obvious that that's not the case. You can hear something new behind every third or fourth door: the squeak of furniture against the floor, doors creaking, snatches of whispered conversation. When you walk past one door with faint light flickering around the edges, your curiosity gets the better of you and you fire a quick blast of x-ray vision. On the other side, you can see the silhouettes of three trolls sitting on what looks mostly like a sofa.

"From the outside, I never would've guessed that this place was full of people," you say as the three of you head down another flight of steps.

"Yeah, that's on purpose," Lollipop says, "This place is a safe house for trolls who can't get home during curfew. The fewer people who know about this place, the better. You're special, obviously, because you helped our co-conspirator out earlier, so you should feel super grateful."

"I do," you say, hoping to make it clear that you sincerely mean it. "I never thought about it before, but if you're all nocturnal, the curfew must be awful to deal with."

"Eh," Lollipop says with a shrug of his shoulders. "Most of the time it's not a big deal. The secret police normally don't bother us if we keep to places like the Black Market and Knifegarden. But if we get a heads up that they're out hunting for trolls to round up, at least we can offer them a place to lay low."

"So who are you guys, anyway? Some kind of pro-troll secret society?"

Goggles huffs when she hears that and Lollipop starts cackling again, a little quieter than earlier. "Secret society?" he says, "What a dumb idea."

"I mean, it's just that you keep calling your friends 'co-conspirators'."

"You think I'm his friend?" Goggles asks, disdain clear in her voice. "I'd rather run myself through with a culling fork."

"Hahah, I'm gonna hold you to that, _friend_ ," Lollipop jeers. He spins to face you and continues, "Nah, we're not a secret society. Though I guess we are secret... and we are a society... Look, let's just say you're mostly right and leave it at that. If I tell you anything else I'd probably have to cull you. Or at least, I'd try my hardest, what with the timeline being fucked and all."

"Uh, okay." That was... kind of a rapid escalation you weren't really expecting. What is it with this kid and jumping from nought to sixty without warning?

Goggles suddenly holds out a hand to stop the two of you. "We're here," she says.

The three of you are standing in front of a door numbered 612 with light shining through the gaps in the frame. Lollipop floats to the ground and pounds the base of his fist against it. The noise echoes away in the silent hallway for a few moments and then the door opens up, catching on a chain.

After the darkness of the corridor, the bright light that pours out of the doorway dazzles you. When you've turned your infravision off and unscrewed your eyes, you see the face of a miserable troll staring at you from behind the door. The bags under his eyes are enormous even by troll standards, his hair is long and straggly, and his horns are large, capped with smooth domes. A chunky band of charcoal sits low on his head. You're certain that it's a Crown, but like the others he's not wearing a mask.

"Oh, it's you," the troll says in a deep, rumbling monotone. "Who's the girl in the mask?"

"This human's the Power who helped... our mutual friend," Lollipop says, "Y'know, the guy who stopped by earlier."

"You mean Xefros?" asks Sulky. (Eugh, it will have to do. You're sick to your back teeth of trying to think up nicknames.)

Goggles huffs and Lollipop grasps clumps of hair in his hands. "For the last time," he says, voice low and menacing, "We're not meant to use our names around outsiders!"

"Oh, yeah," says Sulky, but he doesn't sound very concerned. He sucks his teeth for a moment and then turns to you. "Well, thank you," he says. "Not many humans are willing to help a troll in distress. Especially one they've never met before."

"I _am_ a Power," you say, feeling very self-conscious all of a sudden. "It's my duty to help people."

"Even so," says Sulky, "Thanks for sticking your neck out for us."

"The point is," Lollipop interrupts, "The Nightlight here reckons our friend is still in trouble. We've gotta speak to the captain."

Without so much as nodding, Sulky slams the door shut. For a moment you think you've been snubbed, but then you hear the sound of chains rattling and locks turning on the other side of the door. Just as you start to wonder how many locks one door could possibly fit, it opens up all the way and Sulky makes a beckoning gesture into an empty apartment with patchy, burned carpet and unpainted concrete walls, lit by a single, bare bulb.

Goggles and Lollipop step inside and walk right through to a half-open door at the far side of the room. You follow after them, but before you can reach the back door a curtain of fire springs up in front of it. You jump backwards and spin round in alarm. Sulky is standing to one side of the open door you just came through with his hands in front of him, palms facing each other. Between them, a red, jagged, translucent shape slowly turns in the air.

"What was that for?"

Sulky just shrugs. "Didn't mean to alarm you. I'm under orders not to let outsiders in there. Or in here, really, but it's a bit too late for that."

"Consarn it, I told you to stop throwing flames up everywhere!" says a loud, drawling voice from behind the curtain of fire. It flickers out of existence and a tall troll with burly arms steps out from behind it, Goggles and Lollipop following close behind. This new troll has long, matted hair and thick horns that splay out to either side and end in sharp points. She's wearing a maroon shirt and dark leather chaps, as well as the same heavy boots as Goggles, but she doesn't have a Crown - at least, you're pretty certain the twig tucked behind her ear isn't a Crown - but she looks like she's able to fend for herself.

"Sorry, captain," Sulky says, hands now behind his back.

This woman, the captain of this strange bunch of trolls, steps into the centre of the room you're in. Goggles goes over to the window and leans against the sill, crossing her arms and resting one foot against the wall, but Lollipop slinks past you, muttering under his breath. As the door to the apartment slams shut behind you, the captain extends her hand. "Howdy, Nightlight," she says, "My co-conspirators are being worse than useless. Care to fill me in on just what in tarnation's goin' on with Xefros?"

"Names," Goggles hisses, and for once you're in agreement with her.

"I'm actually called the Knight of Light," you say, shaking the captain's hand. Wow, she has a strong grip. "And, uh, captain-"

"Please," she interrupts, "Call me Skylla."

"...Really?"

"Yeah, of course," she says with a nod, ignoring Goggles' irritated growl.

"It's just that I'm really not comfortable knowing everyone's names. Especially Xefros. If he's the the troll who inherited a Power from the Tyrian Rain earlier tonight, you really shouldn't be throwing his name around like that."

"Finally, the human speaks some sense," Goggles barks. "Great job, captain. Thanks for spilling all this confidential information like some overcaffeinated chatterbeast."

"Please," Skylla says as she turns around, "Now really is not the time."

"Oh, of course not, because following procedure's always such a chore. Why, I can't wait to stand in front of the Tetrarch in that dumb little throne room of hers, trying to explain to her why some human in a dumb costume covered in sequins knows all our names!"

"It's okay," you begin to say, and almost stop talking when Goggles glares at you with such fury you can feel it like a punch to the stomach, but you force yourself to keep going. "I'm a Power, so I understand the importance of keeping secrets. Anything you tell me won't go any further than me and my..." And then you realise that you stopped hearing the loud, buzzing drone of Frohike's engines some time ago. You were so acclimatised to the noise that you didn't notice it stop. "Wait, where did Frohike go?"

"Fro-what?" Goggles asks, lip curled in a sneer."

"The drone that was with me up on the roof." You're really not enjoying her inexplicable hostility. If anything, it's gotten ten times worse since you entered this apartment. What could you possibly have done to upset her so much?

It seems like the captain agrees with you because she turns round to Goggles with her hands on her hips. "Will you just stop already? Your aggressive attitude is getting on my nerves. We're meant to be better than this, remember?"

" _I'm_ getting on _your_ nerves? Do you even hear yourself talk? I'm fed up of you ruining everything! I have more than enough to get aggressive about!"

The two women start arguing with an intensity that takes you aback. It's as if they've forgotten you're even in the room with them. You're in half a mind to just leave and carry on looking for Xefros by yourself - argh, this is the worst, you're never going to forget his name at this rate - when Sulky sidles up to you.

"Would you believe me if I told you that's entirely platonic?" he asks.

You don't get what he means. You're not sure platonic is the right word to describe their argument, but what other word is there? You hardly see how an argument could be romantic. Rather than say that out loud and prove just how ignorant you are, you keep your mouth shut and make an indistinct, non-committal noise.

"Well, don't worry about it too much," Sulky continues. "And don't let it get to you. Mar... uh, she's a good person, she's just bitter about the way our organisation's run."

"If you say so," you reply. "I just don't understand why she hates Powers so much. Outside, she called them all immature. I don't understand it. I don't really understand any of you, for that matter. None of you are wearing masks. Doesn't it worry you that everyone's out to get us?"

"You, maybe, but not us," Sulky replies, "We're just lowbloods. Nobody cares about us rusties."

"Come on, I'm sure that's not true. Besides, what if one of you gets captured by the Midnight Crew? They could make you expose all of your co-conspirators."

"That probably won't happen," Sulky says with a shrug. "We do a good job of keeping our secrets."

You inwardly roll your eyes at that. "And you can't tell me how, because then you'd have to cull me, right?"

Sulky nods. "That's the gist of it. Hey, can I ask you something?"

It looks like Skylla and Goggles are beginning to run out of steam - at any rate, they've stopped shouting at each other quite so loudly - so you guess you have a few minutes to waste. "Shoot."

"Why do you - uh, you Powers who wear masks - care so much about people knowing your real identity? Can you really not let anybody know who you are?"

"It's sort of okay if one person knows," you say. "Two is the absolute maximum but that's it. It has to be as few people as possible, and only people you really trust."

"Why? Does it stop your Powers from working?"

"No, but if lots of people know it ruins the anonymity effect of our masks."

Sulky blinks at you. "Ano... What's that?"

"Our masks are meant to hide our faces," you say, pointing at yours. "It doesn't have to be special. It could just be a bandanna with some eye holes cut into it. But when you're wearing a Crown, nobody else can tell who you are, even if they know you well, unless somebody actively tells them." You remember what Hippok said earlier tonight, about being able to discern who people are behind their masks because he doesn't need to see. As terrifying as that thought it, you're going to have to ignore it for now. You can follow up on the sinister musings of an ex-villain when you're not trying to save Xef--aargh, the ariborn, whose name you wish Skylla had never spoken. "With a Crown and a mask, we can't be seen right. I bet you have no idea if I'm a troll or a human, do you?"

"Well, it's kind of obvious. Mar-uh, everyone keeps saying you're a human."

"That's why it's obvious? Wouldn't it be easier just to look and see if I have horns?"

"Well, uh," Sulky falters and his eyes flicker up to your hairline.

Bingo. You can't help but smile, because you've never had a reason to explain how this works to anybody before and it's quite fun to watch Sulky's confused expression as he experiences it for the first time. You point to the space just above your head and say, "Now that you're actively looking, you can see a pair of horns there, can't you? Just too faint to be sure if they're really there or not."

Sulky stares at your hair, wringing his hands and muttering to himself. "This is... That's... They're... Well, that's just weird. I can't even tell what colour the blood in your hair is."

"Oh, I forgot about that." Goggles did say that your hair is matted with blood. It would make sense, considering how you took a head injury bad enough to concuss you. "Does it look bad?"

Sulky doesn't reply to that. He's too busy staring above your head and wringing his hands together. After a few minutes, he squeezes his eyes shut and groans. "Urgh, this is making my head hurt."

"It'll stop if you look away."

He blinks a few times and shakes his head. "That's really ingenious," he says. "I wish I'd known half the things Crowns could do when I stole mine."

"Why did you steal yours?"

"How else was I supposed to get one??"

"It's supposed to just appear the day after you Inherit your Power. That's what happened to me, and the Seer as well."

"Nothing like that happened to me. I had to go to a SkaiaCorp warehouse pretending to be a cleaner and sneak one out."

"That's strange. I wonder why you didn't get one?"

"I'm sure it doesn't matter," he says. "These Crowns are powerful things, no matter how we get them. The name's Fozzer, by the way. You may as well know it. Like I said, you're not going to tell anyone our secrets." That's kind of an ominous thing for him to say, but you're too busy focusing on not blurting out your own name to ask him what he means. "So why are you looking for Xefros anyway?"

"Not again." You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh. "I've explained this two or three times already. Suffice it to say he's in a lot of danger."

"You keep saying that," Goggles pipes up from the other corner of the room, interrupting Skylla mid-rant, "But I still don't see why my _co-conspirator_ was so adamant that you're telling the truth," she says, waggling her fingers for air quotes around the word 'co-conspirator'. "Frankly, I don't see how he could possibly be in any danger whatsoever. His Power is one of the strongest I've seen. The Kindness doesn't stand a chance against him."

"The Kindness is long gone, how many times do I have to say this?" you say, somewhat louder than you meant to, "He's not going to be fine, he's going to be overwhelmed by violent fanatics and beaten as close to death as he can get. Do you really want that to happen to your friend?"

"He's not my friend," Goggles replies with an irritated pout, "And you'd do well to cease with your melodrama. It's not like he's going to _actually_ die. The timeline's broken. It's literally impossible."

"Hold on," Skylla interjects, "That's all well and good, but the Knight has a point. If we know Xefros is gonna get hurt, we should do something to help."

"Stop saying his name!" You've had it up to here with these trolls, but you're well aware that getting angry will get you nowhere. You take a deep breath and continue. "What I think... What I _know_ is that the crazed lunatics who follow the Kindness don't care about anything but making people hurt. Isn't it our duty to save him, or anyone for that matter, from people like that?"

"Feh," Goggles says, "I still think you're overreacting. He's going to be fine."

"No," Skylla replies, "She's right. If we can do something to help then we have to. That's what our entire rebellion's about, right?"

The two women start their heated argument again. You turn to Fozzer. "Please tell me you agree with me," you plead. "Help me break their stupid tie. This is getting embarrassing."

"I don't know," Fozzer says, wringing his hands, "I agree with you and I get where you're coming from, but the Tetrarch gave us all explicit orders not to leave this building until the end of the night. I don't want to disobey her."

"Oh, this is ridiculous," Skylla cuts in, "Since when did haemocaste rebellion involve so much taking orders from incompetent highbloods?"

Wait. _Haemocaste rebellion_? What on Earth have you gotten yourself into?

"Well, she's not exactly a highblood," Fozzer begins.

Skylla immediately cuts him off. "No, shut up, I don't care. I'm done talking about this. This is getting preposterous." She marches up to you and places a hand on your shoulder. "Come with me, Knight of Light. If these two imbeciles want to sit and twiddle their nubs all night then so be it, but you and I have a troll to rescue."

"So you're going as far as to disobey direct orders now, captain?" asks Goggles, ice in her voice.

"Gladly," Skylla replies. "Go ahead and tell the Tetrarchs what I'm doing. I bet the moment Dammek finds out we're saving his moirail, they won't care."

There were a lot of words in that sentence that you didn't understand, but they definitely shut Goggles up. She gives Skylla a venomous look before storming off into the back room with a huff and slamming the door.

"Thank the ancestors she's finally gone," Skylla says. "Fozzer, come with us. We're going to need someone to lower the shutter behind us."

"You want me to stay here?"

"Yeah, we need _someone_ with a pan to stay and hold the fort." 

Skylla walks over to the window Goggles was standing by and takes a metal rod from where it was lying on the sill. She hooks a loop at the top through her belt and turns back to you.

"Come on, then," she says to you, "He only left a little while ago. I'll show you the way he went."


	9. [A1C8] Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **X Marks the Spot**.
> 
> This chapter's song is [Progress by Disasterpeace](https://youtu.be/6lWqchH05HA).
> 
> A/N: It's been literal months and we're finally getting to meet Xefros and Dammek! About damn time, eh?
> 
> Regarding Dammek, I'm p sure my interpretation of his character from the scant facts we have so far is really gonna date this fic when Hauntswitch actually drops in like 2025 or whenever. I won't be amending this fic to stay up to date with Dammek's canon characterisation, so I've put a little write-up of my take on him in the end notes. Hopefully that should help a little if you're reading this after we've learned more about him.

You follow Skylla and Fozzer as they lead you through the winding corridors of the apartment block. You're fairly certain that they're taking you on an over-complicated route to mess up your sense of direction, especially when you head up a set of stairs for no good reason, but you don't say anything. Eventually you reach a metal door with a glowing exit sign hanging above it, and when Fozzer pushes it open you step out into a small vestibule. There are walls behind you and to your sides, and in front of you is a chain link fence with a gate secured by a padlock and chain. You recognise this area from earlier, when you were trying to find a way into the building but you never would have imagined this is how you'd be leaving it.

Fozzer pushes past you, unlocks the chain with a small key and shoves the door open, bowing like the doorman at the entrance to a mansion. "Good luck, captain," he says. "You too, Knight of Light."

"Alright, we shouldn't be too long," Skylla says. "You're responsible for keeping everything running smoothly while I'm out, y'hear?"

"Okay," Fozzer says. "I don't think anything is going to happen. It'll probably be just as quiet as every other night."

"Maybe so, but stay alert anyway. If anything goes so badly wrong that you need to get in touch with a Tetrarch, promise me that you'll message Dammek."

You have no idea what that means, but judging from the look of dismay on Fozzer face, she may as well have told him to eat the padlock he's holding. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly," Skylla says. "I don't care if this project is being run by whatsherfangs--"

"Kanaya?"

"Yeah, her. I don't want her meddling in what we've done here. She'll just make everything worse."

"I really don't think that's sensible. This whole operation was her idea. She's the one in charge, not Dammek."

"Yeah, so what? We were the ones who did all the work to get this place up and running."

"I know that, captain. Look, I don't like her either, I get it. But what I like even less is the idea of having to deal with the mess we'll make if we go over her horns on this."

"Yeah, it'll be a pain in the globes, but it ain't worth it in the long run. One day we'll have more than one competent leader and we won't have to worry about things like this. Hell, one day we'll have more than two leaders in our entire organisation. But until then, we can't let some greenblood with no idea what she's doing risk everything we've worked for."

Fozzer sighs and sulks at the ground. "Fine," he eventually says, "But if I do report to Dammek and Kanaya pitches a fit, I'm telling her you told me to."

"Sure thing. If that helps, then go ahead. It ain't like she don't know I don't like her."

"This is just gonna prove Marsti right."

"Marsti can do what she likes. I'm done trying to make her see sense." With that, Skylla turns towards you. "Well, we'd better be off. We've wasted enough time here."

She's definitely right about that. The night sky is a little lighter than it was when you entered the apartment block. After this much time, Xefros could be anywhere -- and now you need to make sure nothing's happened to Frohike, too. This night is just getting more and more complicated.

Skylla steps out into the street. You rush to catch up with her as she walks in the direction of the observatory tower, the looming silhouette of which rises over this district of the city. As you walk, you keep your eyes and ears open, scanning the side streets for any sign of movement. Without Jude keeping watch to make sure your path doesn't cross with a random bystander's, you don't want to take your chances. All kinds of unsavoury people lurk in the streets at night, not just the Kindness' fanatics and you don't want to risk meeting any of them. Fortunately, the streets are empty as always and you meet nothing but the odd crashed car and unlit lamp post.

Just as you start to let your guard down, you hear a familiar buzz from overhead. You crane your neck to the sky and see Frohike buzzing towards you like an oven launched from a trebuchet. You stop walking and stand with your hands on your hips, waiting for it to hover down to your level.

"There you are!" you scold. "Where did you go? I was worried about you!"

"Sorry, Knight," Jude says, "Switched to Langly to do some recon."

"You could have told me first!"

"Couldn't fit through building's entrance. You went inside before I could explain."

"Oh." You take your hands off your hips, feeling a little guilty for jumping on your high horse like you did.

"Who are you talking to?" Skylla asks.

"Oh, right. I should have said something. Skylla, this is Frohike," you say as you tap the side of the drone. "The voice you hear is my sidekick, the Seer of Doom. Seer, this is Skylla, uh..."

"Koriga."

"Skylla Koriga, captain of a pro-troll society who our target belongs to."

"Our target?" Skylla asks. "Wait, you mean Xefros, right?"

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. "They're really bad at not using names, Seer, it's awful. And they all think Powers are kind of a joke."

"C'mon, now," Skylla says, "I don't think y'all are a joke. Y'all just seem kinda unnecessary is all."

"They're all like this," you say in Frohike's direction. "I talked to three trolls inside there and Skylla was the only one who wanted to help."

"Well, thanks for the assistance, captain," Jude says.

"You're welcome. Did you say you were carrying out reconnaissance work?"

"Affirmative. Overseer mentioned potential of secret police agents near your location, so I went to confirm."

Skylla freezes. "The secret police? Nearby? How many are we talking?"

"None. It was a false alarm. A curious transmission trace but no clandestine individuals in sight."

"That's a relief," Skylla says. "Secret police is the last thing we need."

"Seer," you ask, "Is the Overseer still there?"

"Negative," Jude replies. "Had to talk with someone else regarding Midnight Crew activities."

"That's a shame. Can you let me know when she's online again?" That phrase she used in your dream, 'functional omniscience,' has been bugging you for a while now. You were hoping you could ask her more about it.

"Shall we carry on?" Skylla asks. "We're not much further now."

You follow Skylla through the quiet streets of the city, Frohike zooming ahead of you. After a few minutes of walking in silence, something in Skylla's pocket buzzes. She jumps in alarm, fumbles in her pockets and pulls out a thin square of grey plastic from her pocket. You recognise it as a portable communicator, but it's way more advanced than any you've seen before. The LCD screen is three inches from corner to corner, and it displays colour as well.

As you walk, Skylla reads the message that's popped up on the communicator's screen with a frown. When she's read it all, she flicks a compact keyboard out from the bottom and starts furiously typing as if she's having an argument with someone.

"Is everything alright?" you ask.

"Dammek," she says gruffly.

"Uh, bless you?" The word's been thrown around a lot tonight but you have no idea what it means. It's probably a name, but you wouldn't want to assume.

"Tetrarch Dammek, one of the leaders of our organisation. Xefros is in one of his quadrants, so I was hoping he wouldn't find out about all this. Marsti had to go and tell him what's happened, so now he's upset. She also had to describe everything in the worst way possible, so it looks like I've bungled everything. Now he's pissed off and I have to make him see sense."

That explanation went straight over your head but you can sense the frustration in Skylla's voice. "That sounds rough."

"It'll be fine," she says with a huff. "Dammek doesn't like to show it, but he's got a soft spot for me. He knows I can get the job done. He's just being ornery because it's his moirail involved, which I guess makes sense."

The two of you continue to walk as Skylla types away to her boss, her eyes flickering between the street in front of her and her communicator. As you turn down an intersection she thrusts the communicator under your nose. "He wants a word with you."

"Me? Why?"

"Hell if I know. Not like he'd tell me. Probably just wants you to back up what I'm saying."

"Okay, I guess I can do that." You take the communicator from Skylla. The conversation she's been having is still up on the screen. Even though it feels slightly invasive, you give it a quick skim-read to make sure you have all the context.

\-- visionaryRevolutionary [VR] began trolling vaquerasQuandary [VQ] at 03:14 --  
Scratchware v1.49 end-to-end encryption engaged.  
  
VR: captain koriga, are yov there?  
VR: skylla, i demand yov ansvver me right this instant!  
VQ: Howdyy, Tetrarch.  
VQ: What can I do for yyou?  
VR: yov knovv exactly vvhat i'm messaging yov for  
VR: don't act like i vvas hatched yesterday  
VR: i demand yov tell me vvhat's happened to xefros right this second  
VQ: So Marsti went over myy head and got in touch with yyou, did she?  
VR: it's none of yovr bvsiness hovv i knovv abovt this  
VR: yov're on thin ice already for not informing me that my moirail vvas in trovble the moment yov fovnd out!  
VQ: Everyything is going fine, Dammek. I have it all under control.  
VR: hoofbeastshit yov do, koriga  
VR: jvst tell me vvhat's going on!  
VQ: Okay, hang on a moment while I tyype it up.  
VR: don't keep me vvaiting  
VQ: So. Xefros stopped by our safe house earlier tonight. He'd been caught out in the Tyyrian Rain and boyy was he looking mightyy sorryy for himself.  
VR: he hadn't svffered any mvtations, had he?  
VQ: Not that I saw. But he was covered in scratches, burns and bruises like he'd been in some huge fight.  
VQ: And he was acting strange, too. From the moment he arrived, he did nothing but pace up and down the corridors, muttering to himself.  
VQ: Eventuallyy, Lanque calmed him down enough for us to get a storyy out of him.  
VQ: Turns out he'd inherited a Power and the Kindness and their thugs attacked him to suck it out of him or whatever it is theyy do.  
VQ: Two masked Powers turned up and helped him escape. He came here and then immediatelyy wanted to leave again.  
VQ: Said he wanted to fight the Kindness and deliver them to yyou so yyou could "show them the truth of the world".  
VR: vvhat the fvck does that even mean  
VQ: Beats me. None of us had the faintest clue what he was talking about. I just assumed he was shook up from the attack.  
VQ: We tried to stop him from leaving but he wouldn't listen to a word of sense. Wouldn't listen to anyy of us.  
VQ: Well, by "any" I mean Lanque, Charun, Kuprum and I. Marsti just goaded him on.  
VQ: Yyeah, so he leaves and then a little while later one of the Powers who saved him turns up.  
VQ: She lets us know the Kindness' thugs are still chasing Xefros, so she and I are going after him to make sure they can't beat him 'til he gets temporal shock.  
VR: i see  
VR: is the povver vvith yov novv?  
VQ: Yyeah, she is.  
VR: pvt her on  
VQ: Yyou want me to hand her the communicator?  
VR: is that not obviovs?  
VR: i vvish to speak to her  
VR: i'm not telepathic  
VR: hovv else do yov svggest i do this  
VQ: Alright, fine. You don't got to be so condescending.  
VR: if yov don't enjoy having painfvlly simple concepts explained to yov then maybe yov shovldn't ask qvestions that are so asinine they make me vvonder if yov have a pan  
VR: anyvvay, stop vvasting my time and give the commvnicator to the povver  
VR: and for pity's sake, make svre to delete this chatlog first so she can't read this  
  
\-- vaquerasQuandary [VQ] changed their text colour --  
  
VQ: tetrarch dammek?  
VQ: hi.  
VQ: i'm called the knight of light.  
VQ: you wanted to speak with me?  
VR: hovv do yov knovv my name  
VQ: skylla told me  
VR: aaaaargh  
VR: i can't believe this  
VR: i gave her a very simple order  
VR: \vve don't vse ovr real names arovnd ovtsiders/  
VR: and does she follovv my incredibly simple orders?  
VR: mirthfvl messiahs, does she  
VR: clearly she mvst be doing this ovt of spite  
VR: i can't think of any other reason vvhy she consistently acts like her think pan is made of congealed grvb savce  
VR: tell her that  
VQ: no i won't!  
VQ: i think you're being really unfair!  
VQ: skylla was the only person at that safe house who was willing to help rescue your moirail. you can't just go and say things like that about people who are trying to help!  
VR: i covldn't care less abovt vvhat yov think  
VR: my sole pvrpose for contacting yov is to corroborate the captain's testimony  
VQ: and why should i do that if you're going to be so rude?  
VR: becavse it's in yovr natvre to  
VR: yov're the kind of person vvho dresses vp in costvme to help complete strangers  
VR: not helping me isn't even a possibility for yov  
VQ: wow. you think you're such a good judge of character, don't you.  
VR: vvhat can i say, it's a talent of mine  
VR: bvt back to the point  
VR: is it trve that the kindness' thvgs intend to hvrt my moirail vntil they indvce temporal shock?  
VQ: i don't know if that's what they've set out to do, but i wouldn't rule it out.  
VQ: they're awful people who care about nothing except violence  
VR: yes, i knovv their type  
VR: that settles it  
VR: knight of light, i hereby order yov to rescve my moirail from the violent thvgs vvho are after him  
VR: yov are to find him, ensvre his safety and retvrn him to the captain's safe hovse  
VQ: hey!  
VQ: who do you think you are, ordering me around like that?  
VQ: especially about things i was going to do anyway!  
VQ: i'm not one of your conspirators!  
VR: yov don't vnderstand vvhat's at stake here  
VR: hovv mvch do yov knovv abovt temporal shock  
VQ: not much  
VR: tell me vvhat yov \do/ knovv so i can ensvre vve're on the same page  
VQ: okay...  
VQ: temporal shock happens to people who're supposed to die of an accident.  
VQ: they go into a coma for months and when they wake up they have to relearn how to walk and pick up objects and that sort of thing.  
VR: that vvas more than i thovght yov'd knovv  
VR: i'm actvally somevvhat impressed  
VQ: wow. thanks.  
VR: yov're vvelcome  
VR: there is one important fact abovt temporal shock yov failed to mention, thovgh  
VR: it only exists as a phenomenon dve to the damage to the timeline  
VR: and vvhen the timeline is fixed, everyone vvho has experienced it vvill die for real as their mortality catches vp vvith them  
VQ: seriously?  
VQ: you actually believe that?  
VQ: it's just an urban legend  
VR: oh dear  
VR: i'm disappointed to hear yov think that  
VR: it's entirely real  
VR: i've spoken vvith an expert on ovr rvined timeline and she corroborated it categorically  
VR: city hall has a vested interest in ensvring people are kept in the dark becavse that vvay they can inflict temporal shock on dissidents and vndesirables vvithovt risking ovtcry from their qvote vnqvote \moderate/ allies  
VR: and meanvvhile a sizeable section of this city's popvlation go abovt their daily lives vnavvare that they're living on borrovved time and vvill soon cease to exist  
VQ: none of that is true  
VQ: it is all definitely superstition  
VR: i think yov'll find it's very real indeed  
VR: jvst yov vvait for the timeline to retvrn to normal  
VR: i think that vvill shovv vvhich of vs vvas right all along  
VQ: and i think i would rather actually die for real right now than continue this dumb argument with you!  
VR: vvell vve agree on that at least  
VR: i mvst say i'm immensely disappointed by yovr closed-mindedness  
VR: in any case, i vvill not allovv my moirail's life to be endangered by the fanatics that are chasing him  
VR: yov \vvill/ find him, yov \vvill/ ensvre his safety and yov \vvill/ make getting him back to the captain's safe hovse yovr immediate priority  
VQ: you're right, i will  
VQ: but only because he needs my help  
VQ: i'm not doing this for you  
VQ: with your dreadful attitude, you're lucky i'm doing this at all  
VR: see my previovs statement:  
VR: \i/ \do/ \not/ \care/ vvhat yov think  
VR: make vp as many excvses and reasons for follovving my orders as yov please  
VR: jvst get them done  
  
\-- visionaryRevolutionary [VR] ceased trolling vaquerasQuandary [VQ] at 03:27 --

You hand the communicator back to Skylla, who's been watching you type for the last few minutes with an amused expression on her face.

"He's got quite the personality, hasn't he?" she says.

"Your leader is the rudest person I've ever met!" you say. "How can you stand him? He's the most pompous, irritating, stuck-up, snobbish person I've ever talked to!"

"He's not always like that," she says with a quick smile. "He cares deeply about the movement and the people he commands. He's just not the greatest at showing it."

"If you're sure," you say, entirely unconvinced. You walk in silence for a few minutes more, thinking about what Dammek said. "What's a moirail?" you ask. "I know Xefros is one, but I have no idea what it means."

"Moirallegiance is one of the quadrants."

"Ohhh," you groan. Every time someone tries to explain troll romance to you, you end up knowing less than before. It's as if your sparing human intellect instantly assumes the most ingratiating posture of surrender imaginable. The entire topic is weird and confusing and you regret asking.

"Do you know what quadrants are?"

"No," you say.

"Well, an easy way to explain it is--"

"No, please, I don't know and I don't want to. Quadrants are confusing and I don't care what they mean. Just tell me what a moirail is."

"Oh," Skylla says, taken aback. "Why, I guess the simplest way to look at it is that a moirail is a cross between a best friend and a confidant. Moirails keep each other grounded. They care for each other, keep each other safe, and pacify each other's murderous rages.

"Does... Does that last bit about murder happen a lot with moirails?"

"Back on Alternia, all the time. It was considered a duty of lowbloods with highblooded moirails to curb their destructive impulses. Fortunately, trolls of all blood colours are much less violent here in Neo City. Hold on, we have to go through here."

Skylla cuts through a narrow alleyway between two rusting metal buildings, so small that you almost didn't see the opening. You follow her through and are surprised to find yourself not in another street but the bombed-out ruins of some large structure that might have once been a factory or a warehouse. Whatever it once was, it barely counts as a building any more. The scorched floor is littered with cracked ceiling tiles and scraps of charred sack cloth, the windowpanes are all blown out, and huge holes in the walls have collapsed. You look up through the gap in the roof and stare up at the cloudy night sky.

"What happened here?" you ask.

"Illegal sopor works," Skylla replies as she continues to walk. "Secret police found out and, well, look around you."

"That's awful," you say. "How did the secret police find out? They must have tried to keep this place a secret."

There's a buzz as Frohike swoops down to you. "Probably ratted out by an insider," Jude says. "Secret police are actually just a skeleton crew with a pretense of omnipresence to instil fear in the populace. There's like ten people working for them, supported by a network of snitches and part-time spies."

"Come on, Seer," you say, rolling your eyes, "Enough with the conspiracy theories."

"No, he's actually right about that," Skylla calls from the open doors at the far end of the building. You jog to catch up to her as she continues talking. "One of the workers had been getting paid to keep tabs on the whole thing. They picked a day to be ill while everyone else was working here, then the secret police descended and blew the whole place up with them all still inside."

"That's typical for the secret police," Jude says. "They don't want to bother actually arresting anyone. They don't actually care about keeping the peace.

"The poor trolls who were here," you say. Just like that, the bombed-out factory is behind you and you're travelling along empty streets again. "Even if they were making drugs," you continue, "To be caught in an explosion like that must have been horrible."

"It weren't drugs they were making," Skylla says. "We need sopor to sleep. The city rations it, and do you know how pitiful those rations are? They're barely enough for even the most warm-blooded trolls and it only gets worse the cooler your blood is. The people working here were midbloods who couldn't live off of what they were given and they didn't have the money to buy more on the black market. They were just trying to help their communities, and the secret police blew it all up to keep the mayor's monopoly safe."

"That's horrible," you say. You had no idea how important sopor is. To be deprived of something as important as that sounds abhorrent.

"Yeah, it ain't great. One of our organisation's members was part of the group working there. She's in a pretty bad way. Just thinking about it makes me mad."

"Because he got temporal shock?"

"Yeah. A really bad case, too. She was out for half a sweep, and when she woke up she couldn't even remember how to speak. I know her moirail. He's actually not too awful for a highblood. But he was in a pretty bad way about it for a while. He stays with her all the time. Had to teach her how to use the gaper and everything. Nobody should have to do that for someone they pity."

"That's awful," you say. That's all you can say. Part of you is worried that anything else you say would just come across as callous. Also, what Dammek said about temporal shock being inevitably fatal is still bouncing around in your head.

Shortly after the timeline broke, your Pa had an accident at work. He had temporal shock and it was just as horrible as Skylla described. Even though it was supposedly mild -- he came out of his coma after three weeks, and was mostly back to his old self a month later -- it was still the most horrible time of your life. You barely ate anything for those first three weeks, you were so sick with worry. Even now, just thinking about it is making you anxious and teary-eyed.

Sure, you don't exactly see eye to eye with your Pa about anything these days, but you don't want to imagine that he might actually...

You don't want to imagine that what Dammek says is true, because that's just too awful to think about. _Everything_ about this sad, tragic, distressing topic is too awful to think about. You have to move this conversation to something else before you actually start crying.

"With all of this going on," you say, "I can definitely see why you'd become part of a rebellion."

Skylla gives you a surprised look. "Rebellion? Who said anything about a rebellion?"

"You did, back in the hotel. Haemospectrum rebellion specifically."

"Well, darn it," she says with a soft chuckle. "Me and my oversized squawk gaper."

"What does haemospectrum rebellion mean?" you ask. "Are you rebelling just against highbloods, or are you trying to overthrow the entire concept of blood castes?"

"A bit of the former, a bit of the latter," Skylla says, "But I probably shouldn't be telling you this."

"Because you'd have to cull me if you told me?"

"No!" Skylla says, affronted, "Why would I even say that?!"

"That's what your co-conspirators kept saying when I asked them things about your organisation."

"Well they shouldn't just throw the threat of culling around like that. That's a gross thing to do. Besides, you're a smart girl. You'd've figured it out eventually."

"Aww, you don't have to say that." As clichéd as it sounds, Skylla's praise is making you actually feel warm inside, and you can't stop the bashful smile that stretches the corners of your mouth.

"Well, you are. You'd be way better at this captain job than me. I'm really no good at all this cloak and dagger stuff. It's a load of cholerbear leavings if you ask me. But I can't just stand by and do nothing while people are getting hurt."

"I feel the same way. I just never knew quite how bad it was for your people. I don't really know any trolls."

"I'm not surprised. We all tend to keep to ourselves. I guess half of us are hoping the war with Alternia will end and we'll be able to leave Earth."

"Leave Earth? Where would you all go?I thought Alternia was destroyed."

"Oh, yeah, the Vast Glub pretty much ripped our entire galaxy in half. But there's millions of worlds out there. Even if we can't go back to the Empire, there's bound to be some rock out there we can call home."

"Does every troll want that?" pipes up Jude, his voice emanating distantly from the speakers of Frohike flying above you.

"Oh, of course not," Skylla says, raising her voice. "I bet half of us just want the Empire to finish invading so we can... Wait, are we here already?" You're standing opposite a crumbling concrete building with a faded sign that reads _South-4 Fire Department_ sticking out from the ground in front of it. The left hand side of the building is a squat tower, three or four storeys high, and the right hand side is a garage with doors for six fire engines. The two buildings are connected by a glass-covered walkway at ground level.

"Is this where Xefros is?" you ask.

"Mm-hm," Skylla says, nodding. "That's meant to be where the Kindness lives."

You can only stare at Skylla, so shocked you're unable to form words. Thankfully, Jude is able to say what you're thinking. "Wait, you know where the Kindness lives?"

"That's what I just said, ain't it?"

"How long have you known that?"

"Not long. It was Xefros who told us."

"For God's sake, you two need to stop saying his name!" Jude hisses.

"Sorry," you say, as you realise you've been saying it along with Skylla all this time. "I don't know why I've been saying it. I should know better." 

"I forgot you lot don't like names," Skylla says.

"It's not that we don't like names," Jude explains, "But you just really shouldn't throw around the names of... Never mind. How the hell does he know where the Kindness lives?"

"Not the darndest idea, but he sounded pretty sure about it."

"This is phenomenal," Jude says as Frohike floats down to face you. "Knight, the Overseer knows Miss Miracle, and Stormchaser, and half of Team Charge. If I tell her where the Kindness is, they can bring them to justice!"

"I reckon Xefros had the same idea. He was saying he wanted to avenge everyone who'd been terrorised by the Kindness like him."

"What was it he said about Dammek? That he wanted him to show them the truth of the world or something like that?"

"Yeah, that was it. Still ain't got no idea what he meant by that. He had this really weird look in his gander bulbs when he said it. It was like they were glowing."

"That's a side effect of only just having inherited his Power," Jude says, "He's unstable and confused."

"Then we'd best get in there and rescue him," Skylla says as she walks towards the fire station. You walk towards the tower and Jude calls out to you just as you reach for the handle. "Wait, Knight. Don't go in. I can't scan inside."

"What do you mean? Why would a fire station be lead-lined?"

"It's not! Lead makes my sensors act up, but they're not showing anything at all. It's like the building doesn't exist for my sensors."

"Hey, Knight, come and take a look at this" Skylla calls from the other side of the tower. "I've never seen anything like this before."

You walk around to the other side of the building, where Skylla is peering through a window. She steps away from it as you get close and you lean in, switching your infravision on. Everything inside is covered in a few inches of some yellow, glistening, gum-like substance that stretches up the walls in long, elastic tendrils. Whatever this substance is, it's completely covering the floor and the bottom half of the walls, reaching up with spindly tentacles to obscure the forms of the things it covers.

You take a step back from the window, severely grossed out. "What is that?" you ask.

Frohike zooms close towards the window, and you can hear a quiet whirr as its camera focuses in the darkness of the room. "That's gross," Jude says after a while. "I've never seen a substance like that before. Should I go over to the 'research library' to identify it?"

"Don't bother," you say, rolling your eyes at the audible finger quotes around the phrase 'research library'. You know what he really means, and there's no way that any of the books on the tiny shelf in your Pa's room are going to help you identify whatever the hell that stuff is. "I'm going inside," you say.

You start to walk back around the building but Frohike flies to block your path, engines buzzing like a hive full of angry hornets.

"No, don't, stop," Jude says. "I can't scan in and the building is filled with weird ooze. Anything could be lurking in there and Frohike won't fit through the door to offer any help. You can't go in on your own!"

"She won't be on her own," Skylla says behind you. "I'll go with her and keep my sponge clots open. Nothing bad will happen to her."

"No offence, captain, but I have no idea what a sponge clot is or how it opens," Jude says. "Also I only met you half an hour ago and I don't trust you."

"Really?" Skylla asks, quite offended indeed. "The whole reason I'm here is so that I can help you! Do you really think I set all this up as some kind of trap?"

"Maybe."

"Well that's absurd. I'm here to help keep Xefros and the Knight of Light safe. That's all I want."

"Don't mind him. He's always like this," you tell her. Then you turn round to Frohike and say, "Where was this concern earlier when you let me walk into that apartment building with two Powers?"

"That was different. I could see in."

"And in the grand scheme of things, how does that help me one jot if I get attacked?"

"Well, I..." Jude sputters.

"We have to get in there somehow, Seer. I get that you're worried but there's no other way. I'll be quick, I promise. I'll open up one of the garage doors, then you can send Frohike in and search to your heart's content."

You reach out for the door handle and twist it with both hands. It's unlocked, if a bit stiff, but one firm yank and the door flies open. A stale, rancid stench wafts out of the door, like body odour mixed with rotting meat, and you have to step away from the door so as not to gag. After a few moments, when you no longer feel like you're about to retch, you steel your nerves and step inside.

"What in tarnation?" Skylla yells, "Ìt smells like month-old dead moobeast in here!"

"I know, right? How could anybody live like this?" you ask as you step inside.

The room you enter was definitely a reception once. You can vaguely make out the shapes of desks, chairs and filing cabinets, entombed beneath this icky covering of what looks like chewed gum but feels like raw chicken beneath your shoes.

"Gross," Skylla mutters behind you. "This stuff on the floor feels like it's breathing."

You look down. Sure enough, the floor puffs and pulsates in a slow, torpid rhythm. This is absolutely disgusting. You can feel the grimace stretch across your face and the nauseous churning of your stomach get more intense for every second you stay in this room.

You pick a door at random and barge through it, ignoring the meaty squelches of your feet as they stomp on the unidentified substance on the floor. You find yourself in a corridor, with a set of stairs heading up on your left and some doors on your right. The floor is still carpeted in grey-yellow ooze, so you ignore them all and head through the door directly ahead on you, passing through into the glass walkway. Frohike is watching you from the other side of the glass, so you stop for a second to wave at it and carry on through to the garage.

There's none of the yellow gunk on the ground in here, thank God. The room is cavernous and echoey, with a high ceiling and cold concrete for the walls and floor. Six enormous garage doors loom over you to the right, and hanging above you is a metal catwalk, suspended from the ceiling by steel wires. Far off on the other side of the garage, the catwalk leads to a small room with dark windows, with a spiral staircase and a pole dangling beneath it.

You were expecting to see at least one fire engine in here, but the room is huge and empty. You walk across the empty room to the closed doors, feet echoing on the concrete floor like gunshots. Skylla follows you in, and she immediately looks at the garage doors as well. "Now how do we get these open?" she asks.

There's a box mounted on the wall behind her. You point it out and she spins round. "Ah, that looks promising," she says as she flips the lid open. With the press of a button and the twist of a dial, the garage doors begin to trundle upwards, filling the room with light, noise and a squeaky, grinding noise.

Frohike slips under the door closest to you when it's a foot off of the ground. "That was nerve-wracking," Jude says. "Good that you're both alright."

"Yeah, we're fine," you say. "I think this place is deserted."

"Typical. All that for nothing." Frohike buzzes up so that it's hovering just in front of your head. "No idea what was blocking my scanners, but I've got limited range now that I'm inside. Let's see..."

"Hey, Skylla," you call out, "Seen any signs of Xefros nearby?"

"None so far," she calls back, shaking her head, "But we've barely begun to look."

"Knight," Jude hisses in a distressed stage whisper.

"What is it?"

"We're not alone in here."

"What?" You spin round and switch your infravision on, scanning the room for signs of movement.

You see a humanoid silhouette on the catwalk just as it throws something large and heavy in your direction. You barely have time to jump to the side before a huge, wheel-shaped block of concrete sails through the air towards you. It ploughs right through where your head was just a second ago and crashes straight into Frohike. The poor drone doesn't stand a chance. It's smashed to pieces, raining to the floor in little pieces of jagged metal and shattered circuitry. Jude's voice crackles and sputters, and you can just about hear him say the word "Four," before Frohike is completely silent.

A length of steel cable is threaded through the middle of the concrete wheel. The shadowy figure yanks it away with one hand and the block flies through the air, where he catches it with one hand as if it weighs nothing.

"I remember you," he shouts, his voice deep and rumbling, and you can hear the cold malice dripping from his voice. "You're that pesky little girl with the lightbulbs for hands from earlier!"

The silhouette's voice is vaguely familiar, but you don't have to guess who he is. "You're one of the Kindness' fanatics, aren't you?" you ask.

"Fanatic? No, you've got me all wrong," he says. "I'm not some kind of cultist. I'm a devotee. I'm filled with a purpose you could never understand."

"Is that why you've been hunting for that troll all night? Is that your purpose?"

"Oh, shut up." He vaults over the catwalk railing, landing on his feet. The concrete block sails through the air and lands beside him, cracking the concrete floor with the force of the impact. Now he's a little bit closer, he's illuminated by the light coming through the half-open doors behind you. He's a troll with straight horns flared at the tip, wearing so much dark blue that he has to be a blue-blood. There's something wrong with his eyes, though. You can't be sure, but you're certain the amber-coloured sclera are darker than all the other trolls you've seen tonight. And there's something about him that's eerily familiar.

It suddenly hits you. This troll and his concrete block-on-a-rope are responsible for the head wound you received earlier tonight. Your missing memories, your vulnerability that Hippok was able to exploit -- all of it is his fault.

"Up there on the railing!" Skylla shouts.

Up on the catwalk, two humans, a tall woman and a short man, are standing where the blueblood was a minute ago. They lean their elbows on the railing, watching the scene below them with impatient amusement, like they can't wait to get stuck in themselves.

The blueblooded troll chuckles. "What a coincidence that we'd run into you again whilst searching for our sacrifice. I thought you'd had enough of me last time, but I'm fine to be proven wrong."

"Shut up! He's not a sacrifice! Where have you taken him?"

The blueblood pouts when you say that. "Oh. I was hoping you knew the answer to that. How disappointing."

"So he's not here?" Skylla asks.

"No idea," the blueblood says with a shrug, "We just got here. And if you don't know either then you've outlived any usefulness you might have had."

With a swing of his arms, too fast for you to react, the troll launches his concrete flail towards you. All you can do is flinch and hold your arms up in front of your face. As if that's going to help at all.

With your eyes squeezed shut, you only peripherally notice the sound of footsteps rushing in front of you, but there's no way you could miss the thunderclap of sound that follows, mixed with a flash of violet light that's so intense you can see it through your eyelids.

The concrete block doesn't hit you. You open your eyes. Standing in front of you is the Ariborn who you've been searching for this entire time. His grey skin is covered in circular, tyrian-coloured welts and reddish-brown bruises, and a flash of electricity quickly arcs between his horns before fading out. He's holding the block of concrete in his hands, the muscles in his arms tensing against the force of it. On the other end of the steel cable, the blueblood is huffing and pulling as he tries to yank it out of his grip and achieving absolutely nothing for his efforts.

Skylla rushes over to the two of you. "Xefros! Are you alright?"

"Ya, I... What are you doing here?"

In front of you, the blueblood snarls. It's a venomous sound, like something you'd expect from an animal. "You insolent worm! Let go!" He tugs at the cable in his hands, feet scrabbling across the floor as he struggles to keep his footing. "

"Xefros, we have to leave," Skylla says.

"Not yet," he says with a sullen look, "I have to find the Kindness first." He turns around to face you, and you see purple light glowing in his eyes like fire. "I remember you. You helped me out earlier."

You nod.

"I need your help again. When I give you the signal, light it up." His voice is calm and slow, as if he's half-asleep. You can see what Skylla meant when she said Xefros had been acting strange. Nobody in their right mind could be so calm and unconcerned in a situation like this.

Before you can ask what he means or what his signal is, Xefros turns back to face the blueblood. "You want this back?" he asks, nodding his head in the direction of the concrete wheel in his hands, "Then catch it!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dammek's last name is Pekari, a mixture of the words Pecora, Karl (as in Marx) and Caribou. His personality pulls inspiration from the type of pseudo-intellectual internet troll who thinks they're a philosopher just because they've read Marcus Aurelius and Jordan Peterson, and who needs to constantly remind people that they're more well-read than (and therefore superior to) everyone else. Dammek treats everyone he doesn't like with disdain and takes everyone he does like for granted -- especially Xefros who, as shown in Hiveswap Act 1, deserves a medal for putting up with him.
> 
> Dammek is confident, persuasive and strong-willed, but his intellectual vanity is his most significant shortcoming. He enjoys being perceived as a smart, level-headed and rational person, so he tends to assume that everyone agrees with him and often doesn't notice when people are being sarcastic or talking down to him. The slightest crack in his façade of intellectualism turns him into a mean bully with a personality like a stereotypical "I am euphoric because I am enlightened by my intelligence" red-pill Redditor. If this happens, he'll call you spiteful names, twist your words around and use every logical fallacy in the book to verbally belittle and humiliate you.
> 
> Dammek's hobbies include video games, laser weaponry and guerrilla class warfare. His trolltag is visionaryRevolutionary, and he speaks in a rovsing and grandiose manner, like he jvst ate the entire dictionary and vvashed it dovvn vvith the commvnist manifesto. He mostly types in lower case and changes the letter u to the letter v, even when it appears as double-u (vv). Although Dammek generally uses proper punctuation, he emphasises things by putting them inside slashes and he'll only use ending punctuation if he absolutely has to. Sometimes Xefros' typing quirk rubs off on him, because I'm a sucker for that, and he'll subconsciously capitalise Xs and omit apostrophes.


	10. [A1C9] Resist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **Showdown at the Fire Station**.
> 
> This chapter's song is [Shout by Tears for Fears](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7FKc1JQe4).

Xefros lobs the head of the concrete flail towards the blueblood at full force like a pitcher throwing a baseball. As the blueblood reaches up to catch it, you extend a hand out over Xefros' shoulder and shine a blast of brilliant light in the blueblood's face, causing him to squint and lose his coordination. The concrete block strikes him square in the face with a gross, meaty crunch and a spurt of indigo blood. He topples backwards like a felled tree, howling with pain. The two humans atop the catwalk lean over to look at him, evidently startled.

"Holy shit," says the lanky woman.

"Zebruh? Are you okay, dude?" asks the stocky man.

The blueblood -- Zebruh, you guess -- makes a soft, pained moan but doesn't reply. Spread-eagled on the floor, he doesn't so much as lift an arm. He just lies there and whimpers, blue blood gushing down his face. You wonder why you thought bluebloods were meant to be scary. Maybe you had them mixed up with another colour?

Xefros turns around to face you and Skylla again. His eyes lock with yours, shining with a bright, purple light that makes you squint. "Come with me," he says. "We can put a stop to all of this." Without another word he rushes off towards the door you came in through.

"Where do you think you're going, you bastard?" the lanky woman shouts, but he's already barged through the door to the glass walkway.

"Knight, go after him," Skylla barks. "We can't lose him again."

"What about you? Are you going to be okay?"

Skylla unloops the metal rod from her belt and flicks it to one side. Both ends telescope out with a metallic shuttering noise to form a pole as tall as she is. She grips it with both hands and twists, causing a sharp halberd head to fan out of the top segment.

"Yeah, now that's more like it!" the stocky man hollers, pumping a fist into the air. "Two on two! We can still have a proper fight!"

Skylla rolls her eyes and turns to face you. "No offence meant, Knight, but they're just humans. I'll be fine. Now go and get Xefros."

You nod and head towards the door. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Zebruh stagger to his feet, dark blue blood pouring down his face. "You festering abscess," he roars, "I'm going to tear you apart!"

You stop in your tracks. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" you shout.

"I said I'll be fine, didn't I?" Skylla replies. "Stop worrying about me!"

You don't need to be told again. You turn and run to the walkway, ignoring the tall woman's shouts of protest. The door into the corridor beyond is still wide open, and you can hear Xefros' footsteps on the floor above you, so you follow them upstairs, grimacing at the sensation of the yellow goo beneath your feet. The floor of the first floor landing has actual carpet, thankfully, as does the second. As you climb up to the third floor, you see Xefros hammering both fists on a wooden door with a little of the grey-yellow gunk spilling out from underneath it. The landing up here is barely the size of a broom cupboard. When you reach the top step, Xefros takes a few paces back, almost stepping on your toes, and rushes forwards with a hoarse yell. He throws his entire body weight at the door, causing it to rattle in its frame, but he bounces off and hits the floor with a thud.

"Xefros, what are you doing?" you ask, and then you inwardly grimace at having used his name. You're never going to get it out of your head at this rate.

Xefros climbs to his feet and leans back against the door, panting heavily, the purple light from his eyes washing over you. "I have to get through this door," he says. "They have to be here. I looked everywhere else in this building before those thugs came along."

"They?" you ask, unsure who he means for a moment. And then it hits you with a wave of terror that makes your skin erupt in goosebumps. "The Kindness is behind this door?" you ask.

Xefros nods. "I'm going to bring them to my moirail. He's going to make them pay for all the awful things they've done."

"I spoke to your moirail," you say, taking a step away from the door. "Dammek's worried about you. He asked me to bring you back to the safe house."

"Not yet," Xefros says, his voice expressionless. "Not until I... Not until..." The purple glow in his eyes starts to dim and his feet give way under him. Even though you don't want to be anywhere near that door, you rush over to him to keep him steady.

"Easy there," you say as you help him to sit down in the corner away from the door. "Take it slow for a minute."

"I can't," he protests, a note of exhaustion in his voice that wasn't there a moment ago. "I have to get in that door."

Xefros reaches towards the door with a slim, welt-covered arm, and that fear is back again, gripping you round the chest like a vice. The Kindness? Behind this door? Does Xefros expect you to fight them? You wouldn't stand a chance.

Tentatively, you press an ear to the door to see if you can hear movement on the other side. The door wobbles precariously when you lean against it. Xefros hit it so hard it's barely still hanging in its frame. Which raises the question: where's that telltale glow? If the Kindness really is in here, there should be harsh, white light pouring out from around the edges of the door. And ignoring that, why would they lock themselves away up here after spending the better part of the night hunting Xefros down?

Maybe they're not really in there. All this time, you've been assuming Xefros' hunch that they were here was right, but why would he know their location if so many other Powers have been unable to find them? That single thought makes you feel a little bit less scared than you were before. The only course of action, you decide, is to get this door open. If the Kindness is or isn't here, you can deal with that. But not knowing for certain is torture.

You step away from the door to give yourself a bit of distance, and execute what would be a textbook grand jeté if you didn't plant your foot firmly above the door handle. The whole thing pops out of its frame -- hinges, screws and everything -- and as you regain your footing you boggle at just how much force Xefros must have put into the door to make it so loose.

And then you see inside the room, and you're so dumbfounded by what you see that you completely forget about any of that.

The Kindness isn't here, which is a momentous relief, but the whole room is so unlike what you were expecting. It's spacious, with a high, sloping ceiling and wide windows. The air is thick with an almost indescribable stench: equal parts the rotting smell from the reception downstairs, the kind of overpowering deodorant that Jude wears, and another musty, acrid smell that you reckon is probably troll body odour. This room must have been some kind of open plan office once, but all the filing cabinets, water coolers, swivel chairs and other office furniture has been clumsily overturned and stacked into a large pile in the corner. The floor is covered in the same gum-like substance as downstairs, and there's another layer on top of that of empty pizza boxes and crushed soda cans. Posters for bizarre Alternian pop bands have been haphazardly taped to the wall, and trolls wearing bizarre outfits and playing weird instruments stare down at you. Over in the far corner, next to a broken printer/copier, sits a huge cocoon with a hole in the top, big enough for a person to sit in and filled with green slime and red-grey mould that smells like rotting fish. The weirdest thing of all, sitting atop a chest of drawers with all the drawers missing, is what looks like a bust of a Roman statue with troll horns sticking out the side of its head. The bust is wearing slotted shades and a wig of curly, bubblegum pink hair.

This isn't the lair of an evil, sadistic Power. This is a teenager's bedroom.

Behind you, you hear Xefros sigh. "They're not here," he says, "All of this was for nothing." You turn round to face him. He's leaning against the door frame, standing at an awkward angle so his feet don't touch the ooze on the floor. There's a look of tired disappointment on his face, and the violet glow in his eyes is much dimmer than it was a moment ago.

"It's alright," you say.

"No, it's not," he mutters. "I'm such a failure."

It hurts to see the devastated look on his face, but you don't know what to say.

Xefros walks into the room, tip-toeing over the rubbish and the yellow-grey material on the floor. "How can they not be here?" he says to himself. "There's nowhere else that could they be." He walks over to the window and rests his forehead against it. "I just wanted to stop them from hurting anyone else. They could be doing something terrible and there's nothing I could do to stop them. What am I supposed to do?"

You jolt to attention when you realise he addressed that last sentence to you. You can't bear to see Xefros hating himself like this, but what could you possibly say to cheer him up?

"It's not your fault," you decide to say. "You had no way to be certain the Kindness would be here."

"Ya, I did," he says sitting down on a smooth black box on the ground that seems strangely out of place with everything else in the room. "Down in the sewers, I heard them talking to their followers. Remember when they had me pinned against that grate in the floor?"

"Yeah, I remember." You don't, but that's not really important right now. "What did they say?"

"They were giving their fanatics orders. They told them all to take me here and wait for them. I don't remember why. I wouldn't even have known they meant this place if my lusus and I hadn't lived nearby when we first arrived in this city."

"Why did they want to bring you here?" you ask. "They've never taken anyone anywhere before. Normally they just drain your power and leave you there." You have no idea where you got that half-remembered fact from, but Xefros nods in agreement so it must be true.

"That's what I thought," he says with a shrug. "I don't know what they wanted, but they said something about the Handmaid." Xefros shivers. "I hope I heard them wrong. If the Handmaid is real, I never want to be unlucky enough to meet her."

You don't know who the Handmaid is, but it doesn't feel like an important question right now. "Come on," you say instead. "We've wasted enough time up here. We should probably--"

"Wait, is that me?" Xefros says, standing up and staring at the far wall. You follow his gaze to the many posters on the other side of the room. One of them clearly depicts Xefros singing into a microphone. There's another troll with deer antlers for horns on the drums behind him who you don't recognise, but you're pretty sure he's Dammek based on the brown symbol on his hoodie.

"That's really creepy," you say. "Has the Kindness been waiting for you to inherit your Power all this time?"

"I don't think so," he says, walking up to the poster with his likeness on. "That wouldn't make any sense. I didn't inherit it the normal way." He holds his arms up so that the tyrian-coloured welts are illuminated in the light coming through the window.

"Right. The Tyrian Rain, of course. It must have been awful."

"Oh, you have no idea," he says with a small smile. "It was like being on fire, only worse."

"What a terrible accident. At least nothing too bad happened to you."

"Ya, I'm glad I didn't grow a mutation. But it wasn't an accident."

"How could it not have been an accident?" you ask. "It's not like you deliberately exposed yourself to the Tyrian Rain."

"Well, I mean, that's kinda exactly what happened."

Wait, what? You stare at Xefros, unable to properly articulate the state of complete stupefaction induced by that sentence. "What are you saying, that you did it on purpose?"

Xefros nods, oblivious to the look of surprise growing on your face. "I waited for the warning to come on the TV," he continues, as nonchalantly as if he was explaining how to get dressed in the morning. "I waited until the time it was due to start, climbed to the top of my hivestem, stripped to my underwear and waited for the rain to start."

_"What?"_

"Ya. I'm just glad I remembered to keep my eyes shut."

You can't help but stare at Xefros in horror. You're pretty sure your jaw has hit the floor and your eyebrows are so high they could touch the Battleship Condescension, but seriously, what the hell? Who would willingly subject themself to the Tyrian Rain? The chance of gaining a Power is so miniscule compared to the chance of mutating or losing your mind or getting temporal shock or worse. Who on Earth would risk that willingly?

After a few moments of sputtering and false starting, you finally manage to spit out, "Weren't you worried?"

"Nah. Everything worked out fine, just like my moirail said it would."

"He encouraged you to do this?" Skylla's description of a moirail as someone who cares for you and keeps you safe can't be right, surely. Who in their right mind would encourage someone they love to go out into the Tyrian Rain?

"No, Dammek didn't encourage me," Xefros says.

_Phew._

"It was actually all his idea."

 _What? The? Hell?_ Moirail or no, that's unconscionable. That's barbaric. That's evil. At first, you thought Dammek was just rude and self-absorbed, but now you hate him almost as much as you hate Dr. Scratch. You really hope you never have to meet him. If he loved Xefros, how could he make him go out into the Tyrian Rain with all the dangers involved?

That being said, how could Xefros willingly go along with it?

You're still trying to wrap your head around that bombshell of a sentence when you're distracted by a loud crash from below you.

"Skylla!" Xefros shouts. "Is she still downstairs?"

"I'll go and find out," you say, feeling guilty for forgetting about her. You were only supposed to find Xefros and make sure he was safe. You've been up here for way too long.

"I'll come with you."

"No, you won't," you say in the most authoritative tone you can muster. "You're falling over your own feet with tiredness. You're in no state to help anyone. Stay here and I'll come back for you when it's safe."

"But I have to help--"

"No, you don't. Stay here." You rush downstairs before Xefros can argue further, leaping the steps five, six at a time. You jump to the ground floor with both feet and turn sharply towards the glass walkway, but you're tackled to the ground the moment you open the door. The lanky woman from earlier is on top of you, and you're so taken by surprise that you can barely piece together what's happening before you hit the floor.

"I'm going to make you hurt," she says as she stands up, towering over your prone body. She pulls a switchblade from her belt and flicks it out. It sparkles in the dim neon light shining in from outside.

Enough of this; it's getting old. You throw your hands up and pour as much light as you can through them, shining a beam so powerful that your eyes sting and numbness spreads up your arms. The woman, who doesn't have your resistance to your own light, shrieks in pain and falls backwards, writhing around on the floor as she tries in vain to block the light by pressing her hands over her eyes.

You quash the light and stand up. The woman wails as she crawls along the floor on her hands and knees, staring sightlessly into the distance with red, watering eyes. You shove her away with your foot -- less a kick and more a prod away from the stairs, because you don't want her and Xefros meeting. You might have temporarily blinded her, but you don't feel any remorse about it. She did draw a knife on you, after all. Besides, unlike Hippok, she didn't keep on staring long past the point she lost her vision. She'll probably have her sight back in a few minutes, which is more than enough time for you to collect Skylla and Xefros and get out of here.

You head back through the walkway to the garage. The huge garage doors are lowered shut again, and the catwalk has dropped down from its supporting wires and crashed to the floor. In the centre of the room, Skylla is being restrained with her hands behind her back by the stocky human man, who's obviously having trouble keeping his grip on her. She's covered in cuts and bruises and there's a bronze smear of blood across the side of her face. In front of her, Zebruh is holding his concrete disc in one hand and Skylla's telescopic halberd in the other. The river of dark blue blood that spouted from his nose has stained his face and the front of his waistcoat, and he looks about as injured as Skylla. As you burst through the door he turns to face you, fury glowing in his dark amber eyes.

"You again," he snarls.

"Let her go, Zebruh," you shout back, trying to muster the same imperative tone you used with Xefros and feeling significantly less confident about it. You never quite realised how muscular Zebruh was. When he said he was going to tear Skylla apart, you didn't realise that was a threat he could realistically carry out.

"You don't get to tell me what to do!" Zebruh roars, flinging the halberd at you with impressive force. You barely duck underneath it in time, so you don't notice as he leaps across the room in a single bound until he collides with you. Both of you tumble to the ground and before you can even right yourself Zebruh is kneeling on your shoulders, pinning you to the ground with his weight. His face, matted with dried blue blood, is contorted into a vicious, fanged scowl. As you struggle to get out from underneath him, he hefts the block of concrete up into the air with both hands. You blast a pulse of light from your entire body, causing him to snarl and flinch away. He drops the concrete block to one side and you try to wrest him off you but he hits you in the side of the face with the base of his fist. The blow is so forceful that you swear you hear your neck crack.

As you lie there, disoriented from the blow to your head, Zebruh growls, puts one huge hand over your face and squeezes, simultaneously digging his claws into the side of your head and crushing your skull. The pain is so intense that you can't help but scream, and no matter how much light you emit or how desperately your fingers claw at his face and hands, you can't stop this pressure from crushing you.

There's a flash of violet light and a crackle of electricity and the pressure on your head is immediately lifted as Zebruh flies off to the side. You roll to one side, half-moaning and half-sobbing in relief, furiously gulping down air.

Xefros flickers into view above you, a concerned look on his face and his arms outstretched. "Did he hurt you?" he asks.

"Thank you! Thank you!" you say as you grab his hand and rise to your feet.

"Now we're even," he says, flashing a weary grin at you. The violet glow behind his eyes is much dimmer, and his face is haggard and exhausted. You're too grateful for his help for words.

As you massage the sides of your face, you turn to help Skylla. She's currently struggling in the grip of the stocky man, who's barely hanging on as she twists in his grip. "Skylla, shut your eyes!" you shout.

You worry for a nanosecond that Skylla won't know what you mean because you didn't use whatever the ridiculous troll word for eye is, but she squeezes them shut without hesitation. You flash a blast of light at the man's face, who recoils with a yelp and lets go of Skylla. She spins round and throws a fist into his stomach, knocking him to the floor.

Behind you, Zebruh makes a noise halfway between a roar and a hoarse scream. "You're all going to pay for this!" You look round to see the laanky woman helping to pull him from a crater in the far wall.

"Did you throw him all that way by yourself?" you ask Xefros.

He nods and gives you a weary grin.

"That's impressive. You could give Miss Miracle a run for her money."

You hear the rumbling of machinery behind you as a sliver of neon light slowly begins to grow on the floor.

"We have to get out of here," Skylla calls. She's standing at the controls for the garage doors, and you don't hesitate to run towards them. Grabbing Xefros' hand as you run past him, you duck under the doors and out into the cool night sky, Skylla close behind you. To your right, you can see a faint line of orange light on the horizon as the sunrise cuts through the jagged peaks of the city skyline.

"We can't take that blueblood in a fight," Skylla says. "We need to put as much distance between us and him as fast as we can."

"Captain, what about the safe house? It's not that far," says Xefros.

"Out of the question. I ain't leading those freaks back there."

"But if we can get Ardata to--"

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Zebruh roars. You spin round in time to see him duck under the garage door, Skylla's halberd clenched tightly in his fists. "After all the trouble you've caused, I'm going to..."

The whoosh of a jet engine above you distracts Zebruh. He looks up at the sky and you follow, hoping beyond hope that Jude might have brought Langly along with some assistance. But that engine is much too deep to be Langly's.

You switch to your infravision and see a dark, humanoid shape hovering high above you, almost impossible to pick out against the dark, pre-dawn sky. It holds out an arm and an orange bead of light flies from it down towards you. You squint, trying to make out what it could be. You only realise what it is when it's far too close to the ground.

"That's a missile! Everybody--"

The fire station erupts into flames, the explosion picking you up off your feet and tossing you through the air. You land in a heap on the floor as concrete and debris rains down around you. Every inch of your body is in agony and your ears are ringing so loudly you can't hear anything else. You pick yourself up, ignoring the now familiar ache that throbs through your entire body. Nothing seems to be broken this time, though. That's an improvement over last time.

You look back towards the burning wreckage of the fire station and the street between you and it, which is now full of pieces of the destroyed building You can't see Xefros, Skylla or Zebruh anywhere, but you can see the humanoid figure that was floating in the air a moment ago much clearer now.

It steadily descends to the ground, limned by a soft green light. You can see it clearly with the illumination of the burning building behind it, and the recognition of just what it is is like ice water in your veins. Jude rants about this thing all the time, but you never believed it was real. And yet here it is, hovering just a few yards away from you.

It looks like a tall, metallic humanoid, wearing black armour adorned with spikes. Instead of a head it has a smooth, curved black dome, halfway between a motorcycle helmet and the helmet of a space suit. Its head is entirely featureless except for a visor of black glass flush with the rest, from which two red points of light like malevolent eyes stare right at you.

The humanoid touches down on the ground with a soft step and tilts it head in your direction. It throws its right hand out to the side with a blur of motion that's almost too fast for your eyes to follow. A long, sharp blade flicks out of its forearm, extending from its elbow to half an inch beyond its extended fingertips. Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, it puts two fingers of its left hand to where its ear would be.

"Our informant was right, boss," the Lancer says in a dispassionate, digitised voice. "Yeah, I have a visual on the human Power. No, this won't take long."


	11. [S][A1C10] Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Used here, [S] has two meanings.
> 
> The first, which it shares with Homestuck, is "sound", and this chapter's song is [Enraged by Carpenter Brut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKS--w4-Zs).
> 
> The second meaning of [S], as you'll soon see, is "Shit just got real."

The Lancer stands in front of you, its black, spiky form silhouetted by the burning building behind it. "Good evening," it says in a quiet, polite, digitised voice, "You'll be coming with me." The sinister, red glare of its eyes pins you where you stand, and it takes a few slow steps towards you with such fluidity and purpose that you can't tell whether it's a person or a machine.

You want to run -- you _need_ to run -- but the storm of fear and sheer disbelief whirling around in your head is too overwhelming to think about. _This isn't real,_ some part of your brain continues to protest. _The Lancer isn't real. It's nothing but a modern-day boogeyman. It can't really be here!_

And yet, despite your firmest of convictions, the Lancer is definitely here in front of you. The air is thick with swirling ash and concrete dust from the destroyed fire station but you hardly notice it. The roar of the the flames, your aching body; all of these are are just as faint. There's only you, the Lancer and the rapidly shrinking gap between the two of you. There's nowhere for you to run. There's nowhere for you to hide.

A savage yell from your right breaks the silence as a mound of broken concrete begins to shudder and fall apart. Zebruh claws his way out of the wreckage and lifts himself to his feet. He's covered in so much concrete dust that the only colour on him is the indigo blood dripping from his lips and his furious, amber-coloured eyes. "You _fucker_!" he spits, dragging Skylla's halberd (now bent at an alarming angle) from the wreckage he was pinned under. "Mike and Ruby were still in there! And you dropped a building on them!"

The Lancer turns to face Zebruh, its head tilting to the side in what might be amusement. "And there's the Alternian," it says to itself with satisfaction before placing its left hand -- the one that doesn't have a long blade extending from just behind the wrist -- to the side of its head again. "Hey, boss. Just found him. Yeah, he has to be the one. I just watched him move half a building worth of concrete like it was nothing."

Whatever the Lancer says next is drowned out by Zebruh's furious, rattling yell as he charges at the machine. He lifts Skylla's halberd above his head but the Lancer sidesteps the downswing with ease and plants a knee into his stomach. Zebruh grunts in pain but before he has a chance to react, the Lancer grabs him by the hair and throws him fifteen feet into the air as if he didn't weigh anything.

"Really?" asks the Lancer as Zebruh crashes back to the ground, "Is that all you can muster? How pitiful." As Zebruh moans and struggles to lift himself up onto his arms, the Lancer takes a couple of unhurried steps over to where Skylla's halberd clattered to the ground and picks it up. "Who let you outside with this? Why, you could hurt somebody with something this sharp."

"Guh," Zebruh grunts as he clambers onto one knee, "Shut up."

As Zebruh starts to stand up, the Lancer lifts Skylla's halberd above his head and snaps it in half with a quick flick of his wrists and tosses each half aside. He reaches a hand out towards one of Zebruh's feet, and a soft, green light begins to shine around the tips of the Lancer's fingers and the outline of Zebruh's leg. It flicks its hand towards the cloudy, smoke-choked sky and Zebruh lets out a terrified scream as he shoots up as if launched from a cannon, only to come to a complete stop in mid-air and crash back to the ground as the Lancer throws its arm back down.

There's a sickening crunch as Zebruh hits the floor, muffled somewhat by the crackling of the burning fire station and the Lancer's callous, digitised chuckle. It lifts its arm to send Zebruh flying into the air again and crashes him back down a second time, and a third, and a fourth and a fifth time until his screams turn into whimpers and the small section of asphalt beneath him turns into a blue-soaked crater. Finally satisfied, the Lancer drops its arm and the green glow fades. With a puff of steam, a thin, black cylinder shoots out from the top of its spine. One end blazes like a rocket as it shoots off in Zebruh's direction, where it splinters apart into a ring-shape, latches around his ankles and hoists him into the air so that he's dangling with his hands a metre away from the ground. Throughout all of this, Zebruh continues to growl and snarl like a wounded animal, and you can't imagine how much pain he must be in. Sure, not five minutes ago he was trying to hurt you, but he doesn't deserve any of _this_.

"How are you still making noise?" the Lancer asks. "I know you trolls are meant to be hardy, but that really should have knocked all the fight out of you. I daresay that would have stunned Lord English himself."

Zebruh groans and spits blood in response.

"Oh, well," the Lancer sighs, "I guess that will have to do. As for you--" Oh, God, he's looking in your direction, "--Unless you want to share his fate, you'll lie on the ground and put your hands on your head."

Screw that. You're not letting the Lancer take you anywhere. You turn and sprint faster than you've ever ran in your life, with no goal or destination in mind except for getting as far away from this monster as you can.

"Oh, do give up," the Lancer calls after you. You leap over a chunk of concrete the size of a bathtub and take the first turning you can down a narrow side street. You have to try and outrun that thing, even though in the back of your mind you know it's never going to happen. That being said, five minutes ago you had no idea that it even existed, so maybe you should stop making assumptions about these sorts of things.

For the first time in your life, you wish you'd listened to Jude's conspiracy theories. If only Frohike was still here so he could tell you what to do. Even if he couldn't, it would help just to know that somebody was watching out for you. The only other people here you can count on are Skylla and Xefros. Putting aside the fact that you only met them tonight, you have no idea where they are or if they survived the blast.

You really hope they're okay.

You turn another corner onto a street blocked by the rusting, tyre-less chassis of an SUV. At the end of the street, you can see the flickering orange glow of the burning fire station. You must have ran in a circle in your panic. There's no time to second-guess your route now, though. You just have to keep moving and hope you can shake off the Lancer. You rush forwards and hop onto the bonnet to leap over it, but the moment your feet touch the metal the entire vehicle is suffused with a pale, green glow. Panic hits you like a bullet to the brain, but you don't have time to think before the car shudders beneath you and shoots into the sky, bucking you off like a rodeo bull. You careen through the air and hit the road, yelping in pain as your body cracks against the asphalt and the air bursts from your lungs.

Every breath is a struggle as you lie on the ground, struggling to get moving again. You flip over onto your back just in time to see the green glow around the SUV floating above you fade away. You roll to the side faster than you've ever moved for anything in your life, muffling a scream as the ground batters your aching ribs. The car collides with the road right beside you with a bang so loud that your ears ring, showering you with shards of broken glass as the windscreen shatters.

You grit your teeth and stagger to your feet, even though your legs are wobbling, but before you can stand up straight you feel a hand between your shoulder blades. Five metallic points dig in as the Lancer clutches the material of your suit and throws you sideways into a wall. Your head strikes the brick so hard that the world goes white for a second. When the stars floating in your vision begin to fade, you find yourself slumped against the bottom of the wall. The Lancer is standing over you, idly running the index finger of its left hand along the blade protruding from its right arm. Those red eyes shine down at you like spotlights.

"My, my. You didn't think running would actually work, did you?"

"Oi!" shouts a voice -- Skylla's voice! -- from the end of the alley. The Lancer looks up and something hits its head with enough force to knock it off balance. As the bladed end of Skylla's halberd clatters to the floor in front of you, the Lancer staggers backwards, flailing its arms as it falls and sending a stream of sparks into the air as one hand digs into the far wall for support. The side of its head is covered in a cobwebby mosaic of cracks, and as it regains its footing, it traces a finger along them.

The Lancer's head whips round to face the end of the alley. "You don't know just how bad a decision that was," it says, its voice ice cold and emotionless but booming so loudly that your teeth rattle. As it turns to face the direction the halberd was thrown, it starts to let out that whirring, bassy hum you remember from earlier, like a jet engine but lower in pitch. The soles of its feet light up with green light as it levitates of the ground, and there's a hiss of hydraulics as ten slender rods slide out from either side of its spine. In the dim light, they look a little bit like wings, or at least they do until they begin to glow green, with flickers of shadow inside as if something inside is spinning with intense speed.

The shaft of the halberd flies towards the Lancer but it catches it with one hand and launches it right back like a javelin. It leans forward and shoots off in a blur of movement, blasting you with a shockwave of hot air as it speeds away.

Skylla has probably only given you a few minutes, and you're more grateful for them than anything else you've been given in your entire life. You need to stand up, but being thrown about like a rag doll has knocked all the energy out of you.

With a flash of violet light, Xefros flickers into view in front of you. He's in a really bad way -- covered from head to toe in welts and bruises and soot and concrete dust, with a nasty gash on his forehead that's gleaming with brown blood. But he's here and holding a hand out to you, and right now he looks like your guardian angel.

You grab hold of his hand and he pulls you up, with a lot of pained grunting from both of you. When you're standing on your feet again, you try to pull your hand away but he clenches tight.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

"We have to save Skylla," he says. As exhausted and injured as he looks, you can see the determination in his eyes, lit by the faintest sliver of purple light.

"I just want my hand back," you say. The thought of leaving Skylla hadn't even crossed your mind.

"Not yet," Xefros says. He grimaces in concentration and then both of you fade from view. If Xefros' hand wasn't still gripping yours, you would have jumped with surprise.

"How are you doing this?" you ask. You know there are more important matters at the moment, but you can't help but be impressed. When you first inherited your Power, you could barely outshine a lightbulb.

"I don't know how," he replies, "But I have a plan, I think, if I can keep it up." He tugs your hand in the direction the Lancer went and you follow, trying to avoid tripping over your invisible feet.

The two of you walk out of the alley, back to the stretch of road in front of the burning fire station. Zebruh is still suspended upside-down, not too far from you, gnashing his teeth and shouting obscenities despite the fact his face has turned blue. Skylla and the Lancer are fighting in the middle of the street, and the Lancer's unbridled savagery is almost too much to watch. As you and Xefros reach a crumbling, waist-high brick wall near the two of them, the Lancer extends the blade on its right arm further out and lunges at Skylla, driving it through her stomach and sending up a spray of bronze blood. You clap your free hand over your mouth to suppress a horrified scream but Skylla hardly seems to notice it. She shoves the Lancer away and, holding a hand over the rapidly spreading patch of umber on her shirt, reaches for a baseball bat-sized chunk of rebar lying on the ground nearby.

You once read that trolls had evolved to be strong and hardy because of the savagery of life on Alternia, and as a result they can shrug off injuries that would kill a human. Until now, you didn't quite realise what that meant.

You feel a tug on your hand and crouch down to follow it. "You said you had a plan?" you ask, trying to keep the fear and desperation out of your voice.

"Sort of," Xefros replies from next to you.

Your stomach drops all the way to the floor. " _Sort of?_ " you hiss.

"Just wait here until you get my signal." Xefros lets go of your hand and you shimmer back into sight.

"What signal?" you ask, but there's no reply.

Behind you, the whirring noise emanating from the Lancer becomes louder and higher in pitch. It almost sounds angrier. "It's time that you experiences the consequence of your actions," the Lancer says, its icy voice crackling with barely-restrained fury.

You peek over the top of the wall. The Lancer is floating a few metres from the ground, holding Skylla by the collar of her shirt. Her black hair is matted with bronze blood and dirt. The Lancer smashes its fist into the side of her head, knocking her to the floor. It extends a blade from its left arm so that both arms match and delicately hovers to the ground.

You can't just sit here and passively watch this awful scene unfold. So much for Xefros and his plan. You have to do something to stop this, no matter how rash or futile. If that signal of his doesn't appear in five... four...

Your attention is caught by Zebruh, who's still struggling against his ankle restraints while his arms dangle uselessly below him. With a pop, a spark and a flash of light, the device holding his ankles in the air snaps in half and he falls to a heap on the ground. He picks himself up, totters to a standing position, and then his dark amber eyes lock with yours and narrow with fury.

Zebruh points at you, says something that you can't hear from this distance (but you're certain was probably vile) and stamps over in your direction. Just as you're wondering how things could possibly get worse, there's a reassuring squeeze at your shoulder and your body shimmers out of sight beneath you. Zebruh's eyes go wide as he skids to a halt for a moment and then he snarls and starts to charge in your direction. You find your feet just in time to fling yourself out of the way as he leaps at the wall you were hiding behind, planting a drop kick where your head was with enough force to send the wall crashing down.

The Lancer turns away from Skylla, sweeping its baleful red eyes right past you to glare at Zebruh. "Strange," it says, "You were trussed up. How are you not paralysed?"

"You can't hold me!" Zebruh bellows, picking up a basketball-sized lump of wall from the ground. "You're nothing to me!"

There's a tug at your sleeve. You let Xefros pull you past the two as they square up to each other. You reach Skylla, who's currently holding herself off the ground with her arms. She flinches back from something unseen and then fades from view.

"What in-" she starts to say, but Xefros' voice shushes her.

"We have to get out of here," he says. "Can you stand?"

"I think -- ngh! -- yeah, I can stand."

"This way, then."

You follow Xefros away from the carnage and down another alley. You risk a glance over your shoulder before you turn the corner and see the Lancer kicking Zebruh around like a hacky sack. Even though you don't exactly feel sorry for him, part of you can't help but feel bad for abandoning him. And then there's the two humans who were inside the fire station when it was destroyed. You can't begin to fathom how awful it must be, stuck under the rubble with flames all around. Just thinking about it makes you shudder. Nobody deserves that, and you're sick of people rationalising it as, 'Oh, the timeline's broken, it's not like they're going to die.'

You run down the maze of alleys, taking turn after turn seemingly at random as Xefros leads you and Skylla away from the Lancer. You assume he has some destination in mind, but before long he starts to slow down. "Hold on," he says in between heavy gulps of air. "My head... I can't..."

The three of you shimmer back into view and Xefros passes out, collapsing to the ground like a felled tree.

"Xef!" Skylla shouts, rushing to his side. She flips him onto his front and tries to shake him awake but he doesn't so much as stir. If not for the soft rise and fall of his chest, you'd think he'd died on you.

You're about to ask Skylla if going to the safe house is still off the cards but you're interrupted by a familiar whir echoing from the end of the alley. Skylla stares towards it and then back to you. Her wide, fearful eyes are lit by a faint, green glow that's getting steadily stronger. In unison, without having to say a word, the two of you drag Xefros' body into a door well and then you turn to face the glowing light, ready for a fight you both know you have no hope of winning.

The light gets steadily brighter, and you realise it's not coming from the end of the alleyway but the top of it. You look up and see the Lancer, limned with green light as it flies across the smoke-filled sky. One hand is holding onto a figure dangling over its shoulder, who has to be Zebruh. The other is touching the side of its head. In the still silence of the alley you can clearly hear what it's saying.

"No, I don't know where they went, boss! I think the human with the light powers turned them all invisible or something. I'm telling you, one second she was right there and the next she wasn't.

"No, boss, I'm not going to carry on searching. It'll be morning soon. I'm dropping this troll off before Miss Miracle comes to investigate the explosion.

"Sonar? Boss, there's only so much room in this thing. Where am I supposed to put a sonar array alongside the missiles and the tractor beam and the blades and the--"

"Yeah, I know, I know. Of course I got the troll Power, boss, do you even have to ask? Yeah, uh-huh, super strength, just like your informant said.

"La Bête Noire? No, I haven't, but I'll keep an eye out.

"Yeah, sure. I'll be there soon.

As the Lancer passes overhead, you and Skylla both release breaths you hadn't realised you'd been holding.

"The Lancer," Skylla says. "I never woulda reckoned in a million years that it was real."

"Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you," you say. "Though mostly I'm surprised we were able to escape. I don't know how much longer you could have fought him for."

"I'm a bronze," she says dismissively. "We're good at getting knocked around, even by troll standards. I reckon you could cut one of us in half if you rightly had to and it wouldn't be any kind of hardship."

"Wow. Let's, uh, let's hope that never happens."

"Yeah." Skylla leans against the wall and lets out a noise halfway between a sigh and a weary groan. "Wow, that was such a catastrophe."

"Not quite. We got Xefros out of there, didn't we?"

"That we did," she says, looking at him with a fond, weary smile. "I ain't too comfortable about his fainting spell, though. Think he's gonna be okay?"

"I think so," you say, hoping you sound more confident than you are. "He's probably just drained. He was using his Power a lot and he doesn't even have a Crown yet."

"Well he did a damn fine job. He saved both our hides back there."

"He really did. I don't want to imagine what the Lancer would have done to us if Xefros hadn't come to the rescue."

"It ain't worth thinking about, that's for sure," says Skylla. She leans down to pick Xefros up, shifting him into a piggyback carry even though it makes her grit her teeth and screw her eyes shut. "Consarn it, how can one tiny kid be so heavy?"

"I can help carry him! Don't hurt yourself!"

"Oh, I'll be fine. Thanks for the concern but I've had worse than this."

"Really?" You can't help but give her a suspicious look.

"Hmm, maybe not," she eventually concedes, "But I'll live. Say, do you want to come back to our safe house for a bit? You must be exhausted. Besides, I'm sure Xefros'll be mighty grateful to you. He'll want to see you when he wakes up, I'm sure."

"Yeah, that'd be nice" you say, "But I can't stay for too long."

"That's fine. After all your help tonight, you're welcome to stay as long as you'd like. But we'd best be heading off. I don't want to stay out on these streets any longer than we've got to."

"You and me both," you say, falling into step beside her as you begin your journey back through the city's deserted streets. Above you, the blanket of smoke from the burning building is starting to clear, and through it you can see the faintest hint of dawn light against the night sky.


	12. [A1C11] Recuperate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: **After the Battle**.
> 
> This chapter's song is [A Real Hero by College and Electric Youth](https://youtu.be/-DSVDcw6iW8).

You walk back to the safe house on weary legs. Above you, the sky is streaked with the pastel pinks and oranges of early dawn. It's still cool and quiet from last night's rain, but you're too tired and in too much pain to appreciate it properly.

You steal occasional glances at Skylla when she's not looking. Even though she says she doesn't want to make a big deal out of it, she's clearly suffered much worse than you tonight and you can't help but feel worried about her. Sure, she says bronzebloods are tough, but every step makes her hiss and clench her teeth. Nevertheless she walks on without complaints, as if the dead weight of Xefros slung over her back isn't even there. You admire her determination. You just wish she didn't need it.

There are so many things that you want to say to her -- that you admire her, that you're grateful for everything she did tonight, that you just want her to put Xefros down for five minutes and catch her breath -- but you can't find the words. After all, what good could words do for the stab wound in her stomach?

So instead you just walk in awkward silence and try to ignore the guilt crushing you like a sixteen ton weight.

When you reach the bombed factory from earlier, Skylla throws a hand out to stop you. "We shouldn't retrace our steps," she says, shaking her head, and sets off down the street without explanation. You rush to catch up to her, your mind buzzing with suspicion. Why is she suddenly so eager to take an alternate route when you've been practically walking in your footsteps so far? Is it something about the factory, or does she know something you don't?

Sure, over the last few hours, you've come to trust and respect Skylla immensely. She's strong, steadfast, and cooler under pressure than you could ever hope to be. If she's not going to tell you, you can live with that.. But, you can't help but feel bothered about what she might be keeping from you.

You're distracted from your thoughts by the whir of engines high in the air. You both freeze, scanning the skies for the familiar silhouette or green glow that means the Lancer's caught up with you. But something doesn't seem right. The noise you can hear is nothing like the Lancer's rumbling, jet engine roar.

You don't recognise the sound until it's too late. A small, silver crescent, barely larger than a textbook, streaks through the sky like a frisbee. It plummets down towards you and smacks you in the face before your brain can catch up with your eyes and ears.

"Ouch!" you yelp, more from surprise than actual pain. Langly hardly weighs anything. It's like being hit by a paper plate.

The drone reorients itself to float in a horizontal position, with the tips of its C-shaped body pointing towards you. "You're okay!" says Jude's voice, emanating from Langly's speakers with the familiar crackle of compressed audio. Even through the distortion, you can tell he must have been crying because of the panicky waver in his voice. "I was so worried but I couldn't do anything!" he adds with a loud, gross sniff.

"Everything's alright, Seer," you say. "I owe you an apology, though. The Lancer--"

"I _saaaaaaaaw_!" Jude wails. "I was there! You were trying to run and I didn't know how to help but you couldn't even see me anyway!" He starts crying, and your heart aches for him. To have projected alongside you during your encounter with the Lancer must have been terrifying. You were so caught up with trying to escape that you didn't realise the horror of it all until you got away. You can't imagine how awful it must have been, watching the entire thing unfold but being unable to affect it. You desperately want to give Jude a hug, but even if he wasn't miles away, what good could a hug possibly do? For the second time in five minutes you wish you had more than just your useless words.

"Cheer up, Seer," Skylla says, forced levity in her voice. "I told you I'd keep the Knight safe, didn't I?"

Langly swivels round and you hear a sharp intake of breath. "Skylla, holy shit-"

"- _Language_ -"

"-You look awful!"

Skylla chuckles and continues walking. You and Langly follow alongside her. "I've had worse," she says. "'Sides, you shoulda seen the other guy."

Jude's stopped crying now, but his voice keeps hitching occasionally. "I did," he says, and then that hushed, conspiratorial whisper creeps back into his voice. "The Lancer was beyond furious. Promise me you'll lay low for a while."

"Pfft, whatever," Skylla says with a shrug, "I ain't scared of a robot made of glass."

"Made of glass?" Jude sputters incredulously. "That was just a frictionless surface layer! It's not glass all the way through!"

"Eh, my point still stands. It wasn't all that tough."

"But it stabbed you like eleven times!"

"So what? That's what redundant organs are for."

"It's strong enough to take Miss Miracle in a fight!"

"She's overrated."

"It has _missiles_ for arms!"

"Come on. If I was frightened of everyone packing heavy weaponry, I'd run screaming from every seadweller I passed on the street."

"I don't get you!" Jude says. "Why are you not scared of the Lancer?"

"Why, that's a secret," Skylla says. She takes a step and then stops, spinning round to face the both of you with a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. "But hey, I think if anyone deserves to know it, it's you two. Y'all can keep a secret, right?"

"Mm-hm," Jude says without a moment's hesitation. Of course he's going to be interested. The slightest mention of secrets and he's captivated.

"Yeah, your secret's safe with us" you say. To be honest, you expect this to be a big production over nothing at all. You've only known Skylla for a few hours and you're sure she couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it.

Skylla leans in close to you and Langly and despite yourself you crane in as well. When she speaks, it's so quiet that you can barely hear her over the soft thrumming of the drone's engines.

"I'm actually an adult," she says.

 _So what?_ you think. She's definitely more mature than the other trolls you've met tonight, but what does her age have to do with anything?

"Whaaaaat?!" Jude shouts, entirely as surprised as you aren't. "That can't be right! That doesn't make any sense!"

Skylla shoots Langly a satisfied grin, eyes raised as if to say, _Yeah, I know, right?_

Well you don't know, and you feel dumb for being unable to see what appears to be the very obvious elephant in the room. "I don't get what all the fuss is about," you say.

"Adult trolls are killing machines!" Jude hisses. "Ten feet tall, skin like shadows, claws like swords. When they come of age they're all sent off-world so they don't murder each other. Most trolls in Neo City are kids because they were the ones still on Alternia when it blew up."

"Not all adults look like that," you say. You're no good at guessing troll ages, but you know Mr. Captor is about twenty-four in human years and he looks like a kid troll the same way an adult human looks compared to a child. Skylla looks about seventeen or so to you.

"Yeah, not all of them do," Skylla says, "But if you're my age, you should."

"And how old are you?"

"Gee, well I don't rightly know. Even before all this timeline hokum, I wasn't exactly counting my wriggling days. But I think I'm about fourteen?"

Embarrassingly, you have to pause for a second to run the mental maths on that. "So about twenty-eight in human years, yeah?"

"Or thereabouts," Skylla says.

"Well that's not that old. Anyway, if it's not rude to ask, how come you look so young?"

"Ain't rude at all. When I was eight or so I had to go outside during the day to fend off some bandits looking to kidnap my lusus. I was stuck under the rays of Alternia's sun for too long and it stunted my growth. I've looked like this ever since."

"Can sunlight really do that?" On the one hand, you're well aware that trolls are susceptible to sunlight, but that sounds like such a ridiculous over-exaggeration that you want to disbelieve it out of principle. Then again, heaven knows skepticism hasn't been doing you any favours tonight.

"Alternia's sun could," Skylla says. "It was mighty fierce. But you don't have to take my word for it. I can prove it to y'all."

Skylla lifts a finger to one eye and pulls a coloured contact lens away. You tilt your head up to look at her eyes, one of which is now a deep, russet brown.

...You don't get it. So she has brown eyes instead of black. How does that prove anything?

Next to you, Langly's speakers crackle as Jude makes the biggest gasp you've probably ever heard. Once again, he's privy to some sort of shocking development and you're completely in the dark. "What?" you ask, sounding tetchier than you mean to.

"Troll irises fill with their blood colour as they become adults," Jude says. "If your eyes are just black, that means you're still a kid."

"And if they're brown, it means you're all grown up," you say.

"Correct."

"How do you know so much about trolls, anyway?"

"How do you know so _little_? Have you not even read the Wikipedia article about them?"

"I don't spend my spare time reading Wikipedia articles at all, you nerd," you say, although that's not entirely true. You've been known to read Wikipedia articles when you're bored; mostly about animals you wish you'd be able to see and old Hollywood actors. There's also the article about your mom, which you've read so many times you can probably recite it word for word, but that's a very different matter.

"There you have it," Skylla says as she replaces the contact lens. "That's why I ain't afraid of anything. Anything this city throws at me, well, Alternia was way worse."

"That makes sense," you say. "Earlier, when I asked you what a moirail is, you talked about life on Alternia as if you'd actually been there. I didn't really pay much attention to it, but it makes sense now."

"Hey," Jude interrupts, "if you're an adult, isn't it weird being around kids all the time?"

"Not really," Skylla says with a shrug. "What's weird is being around adults who are younger than me but who treat me like a child." She stops walking and turns to face you. "The reason I wanted to tell y'all this was to prove that..." She trails off, gesturing with her arms as she searches for the words. "I dunno," she eventually says, putting her hands on her hips, "'Thank you,' I suppose, or 'I trust you.' Not many humans would risk their columns for a bunch of lowblooded trolls they've never met before. It means a lot to me that you wanted to help Xefros tonight without-"

Jude screams into the mic, and you and Skylla both cover your ears at the awful screech. "Stop! Saying! His! Name!"

"Trust me, Seer, it's way too late for that," you say. "I think I mentioned, but these guys all have some really weird ideas about us Powers."

"Y'know, you never did properly explain why all y'all get so worked up about saying names," Skylla says.

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. "For the love of... I'm not explaining it all again! Get Fozzer to explain it to you when we get back."

You walk on in silence for a little while longer until Jude speaks up. "So does anyone else know? That you're an adult?"

"Not really," Skylla says, gritting her teeth as she adjusts Xefros' position. "I don't like telling people. It makes things weird. The tetrarch's the only other person who knows."

"Ah," you say, "That makes sense."

"What d'you mean?" she asks.

"Now I get how you can stand him."

Skylla just smirks. "You think I only act nice to him 'cause he knows my secret? Nah, that ain't it at all. Trust me, he's a nice guy deep down. Tonight probably just wasn't the best time to get to know him."

"If you say so." You trust Skylla, but when it comes to her opinions of other people you'll have to reserve judgement.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

After a little more walking, you start to recognise where you are. The sense of relief that washes over you when you realise the safe house isn't much further very nearly overwhelms you, especially as the long walk has only intensified the aches in your body. You want nothing more than to have a bath and sleep for a century. It's just a shame that you don't have a bath at home and that school is never cancelled for more than a day after the Tyrian Rain.

When the safe house comes into view above the tops of the buildings, Skylla pulls out her communicator, which now has an ugly crack on the screen. As she types, the shifting of her shoulders nudges Xefros back into consciousness. He groans and wiggles his legs a little, startling Skylla so much that she nearly drops the communicator.

"Xefros, you're awake!" she says.

Langly buzzes over in front of him. "Good to have you back," Jude says.

"Where am I?" he asks. The purple glow in his eyes that you saw earlier has completely disappeared and his voice is now quiet and timid. He doesn't sound anything like he did earlier. The initial rush of his Power has completely faded and he's he's back to his old self, whatever that is. "Captain?"

"Take it easy, Xefros. You're safe now."

"Can I get down?"

You and Langly move out of the way as Skylla sets Xefros down on his feet. He staggers as he tries to walk and you rush over to him to hold him steady.

"Thanks," he says, steadying himself.

"No problem," you reply. "How are you feeling?"

"Not great. Like a plateau rag someone's squeezed all the water out of."

"A... plateau rag?" you ask, trying your best not to sound absolutely dumbfounded.

"Ya, you know, like a rag to clean your nutrition plateaus," he says as if that's supposed to make perfect sense. You can't cope with all this troll terminology. It's ridiculous. Every now and again an incomprehensible word comes along when you're not expecting it and not only derails your train of thought but sends it crashing down to the bottom of a rocky valley.

Xefros turns away to say something to Skylla and immediately does a double-take at you, his mouth hanging open in surprise. "Wait, it's you! You're the one who saved me when the Kindness arrived! I never got the chance to say thanks!"

"You don't have to thank me," you say. "I reckon we're even after you saved us from the Lancer."

Xefros' eyebrows shoot up to the sky. "You don't, uhh, think the Lancer is actually real, do you?"

"He attacked and you saved us," you say. "Don't you remember?"

Xefros turns to look at Skylla who just shrugs. "She's right. A robot with red eyes came down outta the sky and threw us around like it was an Imperial drone and we were a couple'a mutants. I never would'a believed it existed either if I hadn't seen it with my own lookstubs."

"I don't remember any of that," Xefros says, frustrated. "I can remember getting to the safehouse but everything after that is a mess. But... maybe that explains why you both look so hurt."

"You've been through a lot tonight, so don't worry about missing a little time," you say. "It's completely natural." As you've been talking, the communicator in Skylla's hand has been buzzing and beeping away. "Aren't you going to answer that?" you ask.

She does and her face rapidly contorts into a scowl as she reads. "For pity's sake," she growls, "How could he?"

"What's wrong?" you ask.

"Nothing. Well... No, it's nothing. Just something I have to deal with quickly. Y'all can make it back to the safe house alright without me, right?"

"It doesn't sound like nothing, Captain," Xefros says. "What's wrong? I can help now, remember? I have a Power."

"It's nothing important," she replies, and you wouldn't believe her for a second even if you couldn't see the anger in her eyes or hear the tension in her voice. "I have to go meet Fozzer," she continues. "I'll meet you guys at the safe house later, so go on ahead without me." She runs past you, back the way you came.

"Let us come with you!" Xefros calls. "I want to help!"

Skylla rounds the corner without responding.

"That... was very weird," Xefros says.

"It was," you say, "But I'm sure she must have her reasons. She seems very dependable." You desperately want to know what those reasons are but you know you're not going to find out today. Who knows, maybe if you meet Skylla again in the future -- and a large part of you hopes you will -- she'll tell you then.

"Ya, she really is," Xefros replies. "She's so great at everything. Just like you!"

"Aww, thanks." You can't help but blush. Being compared to someone like Skylla might just be the best compliment you've received in a while.

"I mean it! You were so cool down in the sewers, fending off those maniacs with your laser beams! You're awesome!"

"I'm just glad I was able to save you," you say. You don't have the heart to tell Xefros that your 'laser beams' are nothing more than bright lights. "Not many of your rebel friends thought I'd be able to."

"Loads of them hate masked Powers. Not me, though! I think you're all really cool!" He falters for a second, picking at his sharp, black fingernails as he finds his words. "Uhh, don't tell anyone I said this, but now I have a Power of my own I, um, I really want to become one of you guys."

"Really?" You have to admit, you're kind of surprised. After Marsti's spiteful attitude you assumed all the other rebels hated Powers just as much as her. You never would have imagined Xefros would say anything like that or have such a starstruck expression in his eyes.

"Ya, of course! This city's awful! I want to make it better! I want to fight criminals and do good deeds and protect innocent people!"

"You'd be good at it," Jude says from somewhere above you.

"You really mean it?" Xefros asks, looking up at Langly with excitement.

"Affirmative. Saw you enact plan to escape Lancer. You're smart, you think fast, you want to do the right thing. Ideal Power material."

"I agree," you say, "You'd be great at it."

"Oh wow, thank you!" Xefros says with a grin. He has huge bags under his eyes and he's tottering from tiredness, but that smile is so bright and infectious that you can't help but smile too. "Hearing you both say that has made all the bad stuff tonight worth it."

The two of you walk a little further, Xefros humming contentedly to himself. You're still exhausted but it's much more bearable now that he's has come out of his shell a little bit. It's like he emanates an aura of warmth and happiness. How can you feel bad around that?

As you walk past a jack-knifed lorry, he stops without warning and spins to face you. "Oh! I haven't even properly introduced myself yet!"

"You don't have to--" you begin to say, but he speaks right over you.

"I'm Xefros Tritoh! What's your name?"

He sticks a hand out and you shake it.

"I'm Joey Claire."

It's not until you let go of his hand that you realise what you've just done, and your blood turns to ice. You clap both hands over your mouth as if that could possibly do anything to help.

"Knight, you idiot!" Jude screeches. "What are you doing?!"

"What's wrong?" Xefros asks, face framed with worry. "Did I..." Realisation dawns on his face and he sputters over his words. "Oh, no! I asked you what your name was!"

And you told him like a complete idiot. What could have possessed you to make such a catastrophic mistake?

Wait. You know exactly what caused it. You must still be under the effects of Hippok's truth serum. How could you have forgotten about it after the Overseer's demonstration? And more importantly, what are you going to do now that you've just told your secret identity to a complete stranger?

"I'm so sorry," Xefros says, babbling with a guilty look on his face as if he was entirely responsible. "This is all my fault, I'm so stupid! Dammek's always getting on my case about names; why am I so bad at following basic instructions? I should've realised! Why am I always such a failure?"

You let out a deep sigh and carry on walking. "It's not your fault," you say.

"Yes, it is," Xefros says, scurrying to catch up with you. "I should know better! Argh, why didn't I ask what you're called? I'm really sorry for being so terrible at everything."

"It's fine. Stop apologising. I'm the one who slipped up."

"Sorry," Xefros says again, hanging his head.

You reach out and grab his shoulders. "Look at me for a second, okay?" You expect him to shrug you off or back away -- it was a pretty blatant invasion of his personal space, after all -- but instead he just stands there, moping, eyes fixed to the floor. "Please? I don't want to talk to your horns."

Xefros looks up at you. His eyes are burning with so much shame and self-loathing that you're overwhelmed. You want to explain that it's not his fault, but could anything you say possibly counter that? Even if it can't, you have to at least try, because watching him feel sorry for himself is almost unbearable.

Oh, right, he's still looking at you. You'd better stop clutching his shoulder like a weirdo and start actually talking. "Please don't say all that stuff. You're not stupid and you're not a failure, alright? You saved my life tonight. Even if you can't remember it, I owe you a lot."

"I..."

"This is my problem. It's got nothing to do with you and even if it did, you haven't done anything wrong so please don't apologise"

"...Okay," Xefros says, nodding. Even though you don't think he entirely agrees with you, you let go of his shoulders. You also take a step back, because you didn't realise just how close you'd gotten to him. His eyes back to the ground, Xefros adds, "Even so, I'm sorry for asking your name."

" _Please_ , stop apologising." All of this grovelling is starting to test your patience. Sure, it was tragic a moment ago, but now you suspect he wasn't even really listening -- either that or you're not going to get through to him as easily as you'd hoped.

Xefros' looks up to say something and his eyes flick to the top of your head. "Um, if it's any help, the anonymity effect is still working."

"Really? Oh, that's good to hear," you say with a sigh of relief. "I was dreading finding out."

"Ya, haha, um, at least I didn't ruin everything." He's still nervously clicking his fingernails together, but the slightest hint of a smile has crept back into the corners of his mouth.

"I'm surprised you even know what the anonymity effect is," you say. "None of your co-conspirators do."

"Ya, they all think it's dumb like Dammek does. But my hivemate's moirail is really vocal about supporting masked Powers. It's kind of, uh, intense; I don't know how he hasn't been snatched in his sleep yet."

"So you found out about it through him?"

Xefros nods. "He let me borrow me a few Magnificent Miss Miracle comics and they were all so cool. I actually didn't know they were banned until after." Xefros chuckles. "I always wished I could help people like she does. When Dammek told me his plan for me to get in the Tyrian Rain it just seemed perfect."

Oh, right. You almost forgot it was Dammek's idea for Xefros to expose himself to the Tyrian Rain. You don't care a jot about the intricacies of alien romance. The kind of person who would make his boyfriend do something like that is nothing but a monster in your eyes. You force yourself to swallow your distaste, though: after all, you're trying to cheer Xefros up, not make him feel worse. "I was inspired by Miss Miracle, too. When I got my Power, I started helping people to be just like her"

"How did you start? It's kind of overwhelming to think about it all."

"Oh, definitely. I was clueless when I first started." You're fully aware you're still oversharing but at this point can it get any worse? "I had a mentor who showed me the ropes. He really helped a lot. I think without him I would've been so out of my depth."

"That's a good idea!" Xefros says. "Would... would you be my mentor?"

You really didn't expect that. "Why me?"

"Because you're so good at this!" Xefros shouts. "I know it's a lot to ask but I'll just screw everything up if I do it on my own. I want to save the world so badly. Maybe if you show me what I'm meant to be doing, I'll work out how?"

You hesitate for a moment because yikes, you're really not sure how to answer that. You thought Jude had self esteem problems but they don't come anywhere near to Xefros'.

Right on cue, Jude speaks up. "You can't seriously be considering this."

"Yes, actually, I am," you say, hoping you sound confident.

"It's a dumb idea! he shouts back. "We can't add a third person! We're not Team Charge! We risk the security of our operation by inviting unknown entities!"

"It's okay," Xefros says with the most heartbreakingly despondent sigh you've ever heard. "I don't want to cause any trouble for you. It was a stupid thing to ask."

"No, stop, you didn't let me say yes! It's not stupid, not at all. I'd love to show you the ropes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. You deserve the same chance to become a Power that I did."

"Knight, come _on_ -" Jude says.

"No, shut it, I've made my mind up." And with that you march on ahead in the hope that he won't keep complaining -- or at least you won't be able to hear him when he does.

You barely take five steps before the trolls' safe house comes into view at the end of a side-street. "Finally!" Xefros shouts, and runs past you.

Langly hangs back as the two of you make your way to the apartment block, Xefros sprinting down the street and you walking behind at a considerable distance. The building's front shutters are now up, and a pair of green deck chairs have been placed out front. When Xefros gets there, he immediately starts having an animated discussion with two trolls waiting outside. As you get close, you recognise one of the trolls as the goggle-wearing girl from earlier. The other troll is perched on the edge of a deck chair and wearing a neckerchief, a green, wide-brimmed hat and black overalls. As you get close to them, you catch the tail end of their conversation.

"Is it true you met the Lancer?" asks the troll in the hat.

"I told you, I don't remember a thing after leaving here," Xefros says, shaking his head.

"Well what matters is that you're okay," Goggles says. "I'm just glad you got back safely. If half of the things in Skylla's messages were true, it must have been awful." This is a whole other side to Goggles that you're seeing. Where was all this concern earlier?

"I can't imagine them either!"

Goggles' eyes flick between you and Xefros. You expect to see that familiar malice in her eyes and instead there's nothing but care and worry. "We all heard the explosion from here," she says, "I was fearing the worst, so thank you for bringing my co-conspirator back in one piece."

"You're welcome. It's my duty to help people, remember?"

Goggles nods. "I evidently underestimated you. Accept my apologies."

"Sure," you say. You suppose a please would be too much to ask for. That being said, you're definitely a fan of this new thing where she's not being outright hostile to you. It's a definite improvement over earlier.

"So... what are you going to do next?" asks the troll in the hat.

"I'm going to visit Dammek and then I'm going to sleep for a sweep and a half." Xefros says.

"Don't be ridiculous," Goggles says. "You're not going anywhere until you've had your ablutions." She grabs Xefros by the shoulders and spins him round. Wow, that kid really doesn't care about getting manhandled -- er, _trollhandled_. "I don't know what this powder you're covered in is but it'll turn your sopor rancid. And after the night you've had, I have some scented detonators that will be perfect for unwinding."

"Noooo, I don't need any ablutions," Xefros whines, not moving to free himself from Goggles' grip.

"Uh, it's concrete dust," you pipe up. "That explosion you heard was the Lancer blowing up a building to... Huh. I'm not actually sure why."

The troll in the hat whistles. "Impressive," they say. "If you escaped that... You must really be something"

"She's so awesome," Xefros says, and you feel yourself blushing again. "I wish you two'd seen her! She... uh, what am I meant to call you?"

"The Knight of Light," Jude says, before you can open your mouth.

"Right, well she was so cool!"

Goggles folds her arms and gives you an appraising glare. "Hmm. I can't imagine what Dammek would say if he heard you singing the praises for a masked Power like this."

Welp, there's the hostility you were missing. It doesn't really faze you but for some reason Xefros winces like she physically struck him. "She... she saved my life," he says, muttering at the floor, "Can't I feel grateful to her for that?"

"...You wouldn't have actually died," says the hat troll.

Xefros doesn't reply to that.

"... Whatever." They stand up and stare gormlessly up at the sky. "...Nearly morning. I'm gonna go wake Lanque up."

"Good idea," Goggles says, "I suppose I'd better prepare our handover. Coming, Xefros?"

He sighs and looks at you. "In a bit. The Knight and I have some things to discuss.

"Okay."

You all just sort of stand there awkwardly for a few moments.

"What I _mean_ ," Xefros says, "Is that I want to speak to her privately. You two go in. I'll catch up."

Goggles and the troll in the hat awkwardly shuffle into the building. Xefros waits for them to leave and turns back to you. "So, do you still want to be my mentor?"

"Absolutely," you say before Jude can interrupt you again.

"That's great!" Xefros leans in close and whispers conspiratorially. "We should meet up as our troll -- and, uh, human -- selves. We'll pretend to be hanging out and secretly we'll make plans to save the world!"

That earnest smile is on Xefros' face again, and you can't help but giggle at that. "I think, just for the beginning, we should probably set our sights a little bit lower than saving the entire world."

"You're right," Xefros says with a sly grin. "Just the city for now, then."

"Uh, sure. Just the city. So when do you want to meet up? How about midday tomorrow? I don't have school."

Xefros grimaces. "Ugh, I forgot you humans are all awake during the daytime. Also, I'm exhausted so tomorrow just isn't happening for me. How about Friday?"

"Sure, Friday works. I'm at school all day, but we can meet up after? How about 5 o' clock?"

"In the morning or the evening?"

"Um, evening."

Xefros ponders that for a moment. "Okay, I guess I can wake up early."

"Great. Where do you want to meet?"

"Well I've got a monorail pass so I can go anywhere. What district's your school in?"

"West-1," you say, and then you realise that was probably a little too personal.

"Oh, alright, that's not far. Do you know where Acorn Park is?"

"Yes, that works," you say with a nod. That's actually pretty close to your school. Sure it's convenient, but you'll have to be careful not to make anyone too suspicious.

"Awesome! Then I'll meet you there at five. Just me, just you, okay? Nobody else, not even the Seer."

"Nobody else." You don't think Jude would leave the house even if the world was ending, but it would be kind of mean to say that out loud.

"Then it's settled! I'll see you Friday. But for now--" Whatever he's going to say next is cut off by a massive yawn. "Wow, I've never felt this tired in my life. I know Skylla wanted us to wait for her but if I stay here I'll collapse where I stand. I'm going to grab my stuff, go to Dammek's hive and sleep all day.."

"That sounds like a good plan. I'd better go home, too. Good night."

"Good night?" Xefros asks, head tilting in confusion. "Oh, right. Well, good night, and good day too!"

You watch him enter the apartment building and pull a switch on the wall next to the door. As the metal shutters trundle down, you turn and head home. As you walk, Langly swoops down beside you.

"Not one word about how I accidentally said my name," you say. "And I don't want to hear you complain about choosing to mentor Xefros, either."

"I wasn't going to," Jude replies. "Name reveal wasn't your fault. My outburst wasn't fair and I'm sorry. And as for the mentoring strategy; I've actually been thinking about it and I've changed my mind."

"Really? That's a surprise."

"I think it's what Zephyr would've wanted when he mentored you. Besides, if that troll's surrounded by people who think Powers are a waste of time he'll need all the encouragement he can get."

"You're definitely right about that," you say. "I wonder why he's so fixated on becoming a Power when--" The rest of your sentence is cut off by a huge yawn. "--Whatever. I'm too tired to think right now."

"I see. When did you wake up yesterday?"

"Half past six."

"Makes sense that you're tired. It's almost five o' clock."

"Wow. It's been a long night, hasn't it?"

"Agreed. Let's find a truck to get you home."


	13. [A1I2C1] Birds of a Feather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song is [Space Age Love Song by A Flock of Seagulls](https://youtu.be/jYnpisHe0X0).

#### INTERMISSION TWO

\-- xtativeRevolutionary [XR] began trolling visionaryRevolutionary [VR] at 05:12 --  
Scratchware v1.49 end-to-end encryption engaged.  
  
XR: dammek!!  
XR: it worked!!  
XR: ive got a power!!  
VR: i beg yovr pardon  
XR: X:?  
XR: oh no!  
XR: im so sorry!! i didnt mean to use your real name i completely forgot!  
XR: i know you dont like eXcuses but ive had such an inXse night  
XR: i just really wanted to speak with you  
VR: it's fine  
VR: i forgive yov  
VR: and i'm svre yov knovv that vve alvvays have to assvme ovr commvnications are being monitored  
XR: even though all our chats are encrypted?  
VR: \yes/ even thovgh  
VR: bvt there's no point having this old conversation again  
XR: im sorry X:(  
VR: like i said, i forgive yov  
VR: anyvvay i vvas going to congratvlate yov before yov got me so off-topic  
VR: let's start again, shall vve?  
  
\-- visionaryRevolutionary [VR] ceased trolling xtativeRevolutionary [XR] at 05:15 --  
  
\-- visionaryRevolutionary [VR] began trolling xtativeRevolutionary [XR] at 05:15 --  
Scratchware v1.49 end-to-end encryption engaged.  
  
VR: good morning, servo  
VR: hovv vvas yovr night  
XR: uhm  
XR: im sorry i cant remember vvhat yovr codename vvas...  
VR: ...  
VR: really?  
XR: oh! its okay i remembered!  
XR: but ya... motor i got a power!  
VR: yes, vq got in tovch to tell me a little vvhile ago  
XR: oh X:(  
XR: i was hoping it would be a surprise  
VR: vve alvvays knevv it vvas going to vvork though, didnt vve? vve follovved the vvitch's instrvctions to the letter  
VR: bvt in any case it's exceptional nevvs  
VR: vvhat is it?  
XR: im not sure  
XR: i cant remember  
XR: but marsti says skylla saw me turn invisible  
XR: wait! oops i meant sv and vq!  
XR: but ya anyway i cant do it any more  
XR: i tried but it just makes my head hurt too much  
VR: that's alright  
VR: vve'll get yov a crovvn in dve covrse  
VR: in any case, congratvlations!  
VR: yov pvshed throvgh all the pain and strvggle and received a gloriovs prize for yovr efforts  
XR: oh man you have no idea! XXD  
XR: there was definitely a lot of pain and a lot of struggle  
VR: precisely  
VR: yov've taken a vveapon of vvar and reclaimed it for yovrself  
VR: yovr very existence is a sharp knife in the chitinovs postvre pole of every last one of alternia's fish-fingered tyrants!  
XR: X:)  
VR: in the svveeps to come, yov'll be vievved as a beacon of hope  
VR: yovr nevv povver vvill embody the determination of ovr cavse  
VR: it'll be the banner that galvanises ovr rebellion into action!  
VR: i'm so so provd of yov <>  
XR: !!!!!!!!!!  
XR: <><><><><><><><><><>  
VR: haha calm dovvn  
XR: sorry  
XR: just  
XR: today has been SUCH a day  
XR: you have no idea how much it means for me to hear you say that X:)  
XR: can i come over?  
XR: i really need to see you  
XR: i really need to be with you right now  
VR: hmmmm  
VR: alright svre  
XR: yes! X:D  
VR: be vvarned thovgh i'm not doing mvch  
VR: i've been at the black market all night and i'm exhavsted  
XR: you poor thing  
XR: but thats fine i dont want to do much anyway  
XR: i want to do whatever you want to do!!  
VR: yov're svch a good moirail  
VR: i'm so lvcky to have someone vvho cares abovt my feelings the vvay yov do  
XR: awwwww  
XR: well it also means i dont have to deal with my neighbour  
VR: vvho, the singer?  
VR: she seemed nice enovgh vvhen i met her  
XR: no not her  
VR: then vvho?  
VR: yovr hivemate vvith the fossil collection?  
XR: no the guy aX the hall  
VR: oh  
VR: right  
VR: him  
VR: if he's being a problem i can have him taken care of  
XR: no its nothing like that!  
XR: hes fine! just a little  
XR: uh  
XR: inXse and overbearing?  
VR: if yov're svre there's no problem  
VR: bvt say the vvord if he crosses the line and i'll sort him out  
XR: thanX but hes not a problem! really!  
XR: anyway ill be right over  
VR: good  
VR: make sure to do the secret knock vvhen yovre here so i knovv its yov  
VR: oh and can yov get me a cylinder or tvvo of limeade on yovr vvay over?  
XR: ya okay  
XR: i dont knovv if any stores that sell hvman beverages are open yet bvt ill take a look  
XR: haha oh man your quirk is rubbing off on me again!! X:)  
XR: anyway if i take the monorail i should be there in XXX minutes  
VR: vgh do not take the monorail  
XR: but its quick! and its cheap!  
VR: its the symbol of ovr oppression  
XR: its the symbol of getting aX the city quickly!  
XR: i know you dont like it and i dont want to support it but i dont know how else im supposed to get to yours before sunrise im sorry X:(  
VR: oh fine  
VR: jvst be safe okay  
VR: i cant protect yov if i dont knovv vvhere yov are  
XR: ill be fine X:)  
VR: i knovv  
VR: but i vvorry anyvvay  
VR: see yov soon  
XR: cant wait!  
XR: <>  
  
\-- xtativeRevolutionary [XR] ceased trolling visionaryRevolutionary [VR] at 05:24 --  
  
\-- xtativeRevolutionary [XR] began trolling visionaryRevolutionary [VR] at 05:30 --  
Scratchware v1.49 end-to-end encryption engaged.  
  
XR: actually i have a favour to ask  
VR: hovv far avvay are yov novv?  
XR: just went past blind pig station  
VR: oh okay good  
VR: do yov ever vvonder vvhat a pig even is?  
XR: oh i know!  
XR: they were a kind of earth oinkbeast!  
XR: but they werent always furry and they had tusX instead of acid squirters  
XR: humans bred them for food and companionship but theyre all eXtinct now  
VR: no vvonder if they vvere all blind  
VR: if they covldn't defend themselves they mvst have been pathetic  
XR: no they were adorable, they have some robot ones at the zoo  
XR: oh! vve shovld go see them some time!  
XR: the place is open vvntil right before cvrfevv  
XR: it covld be a great idea for an early night date!  
VR: absolvtely not  
VR: are yov ovt of yovr mind?  
XR: X:(  
VR: zoos are nothing bvt barbaric, open-air dvngeons vvhere the pan-dribbling masses find enjoyment in the sadistic exhibition of vndeserving animals  
XR: even the robot animals?  
VR: \especially/ the robot animals  
XR: oh  
XR: but theyre built for it  
XR: is it really such a big deal if theyre robots?  
VR: of covrse it is!  
VR: it's a matter of principle  
VR: they'd do exactly the same to vs if they covld, trvst me!  
XR: i do trust you!  
XR: we wont go to the zoo  
XR: anyway this isnt what i wanted to talk about  
XR: i had a favour to ask you  
VR: yes yov did  
VR: i got carried avvay by yovr distracting change of topic  
VR: vvhat is it?  
XR: i need you to get ardata to wipe the memories of everyone i met tonight  
XR: so thats gonna be skylla fozzer marsti charun and lanque  
XR: and i think maybe kuprum as well?  
VR: vvhy?  
VR: ignoring yovr blatant and careless lack of codenames  
VR: that sovnds like a total vvaste of resovrces  
VR: co's services aren't cheap  
VR: and besides i don't see vvhat covld possibly be the point in vviping that many people's memories  
XR: ok  
XR: so i know how this is gonna sound  
XR: but i want to become a masked power  
XR: like the knight of light  
VR: vvhat.  
XR: we got to talking and shes so cool!  
XR: i really want to be like her!  
XR: protecting the innocent  
XR: helping the helpless  
XR: making the city a better place one act of kindness at a time  
XR: i want to help people and now with these powers i can!  
XR: but it means i cant have anyone who knows who i am except people like you who i really trust X:)  
VR: mirthfvl messiahs, \really/????  
VR: the masked povvers are not ovr allies!!!  
VR: i can't believe i have to explain this to yov  
VR: they are nothing bvt a spectacle designed to keep this city's popvlace meek and complacent, plain and simple  
VR: they're so bvsy qvote-vnqvote \stopping crime/ in a flashy vvay that nobody notices or cares that nothing ever gets better  
VR: and nobody vvants to step vp and actvally make a difference becavse \ohh that's vvhat povvers are for/  
VR: their very presence makes ovr righteovs rebellion infinitely more difficult  
VR: even the povvers vvho svpposedly agree vvith ovr cavse and vvhose goals svperficially align vvith ovrs are nevertheless ovr svvorn enemies!  
VR: i cant believe one of them vvas able to deceive you!  
VR: and frankly i also thovght yov vvere better than this  
VR: to think my ovvn moirail vvould aspire to shirk his dvties, vndermine my strvggle for rebellion and become part of the crooked system maintaining this city's corrvpt hegemony  
VR: i'm incredibly disappointed in yov  
XR: no!!!  
XR: no thats not right at all!  
XR: i know the rebellion is important  
XR: i dont want to shirk or undermine anything  
XR: i dont want any of that!  
VR: i'm not svre any more.  
VR: after hearing yovr gvshing vvords of praise abovt the knight of light, that all jvst sovnds like hollovv platitvdes novv  
XR: its not!  
XR: ill prove it to you  
XR: what do i have to do to show you im on your side? X:(  
VR: yov can start by never speaking of this again  
VR: we can pvt yovr povvers to good vse for the rebellion vvhen the time is right  
VR: bvt yov are \not/ to entertain the lvdicrovs notion of becoming a masked povver  
VR: do yov vnderstand?  
VR: i asked yov a qvestion  
VR: xefros are yov still there?  
XR: yes i understand  
VR: good  
VR: alright  
VR: then there's nothing else to discuss  
VR: i'll see yov soon  
  
\-- visionaryRevolutionary [VR] ceased trolling xtativeRevolutionary [XR] at 05:48 --


	14. [A1I2C2] Miles to the North (But Not Many)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song is [Black Night, White Light by Frankie Goes to Hollywood](https://youtu.be/KObdqhVWDns).

You're woken by the crackly sound of artificial birdsong. Your limbs ache like you've been lifting weights and that damn screeching, like a trepanning drill to your cranial carapace, isn't helping matters. With a laboured groan you totter to your feet, feel your way over to the window and slam it shut. The noise ceases and you topple back onto the sofa.

Mother Grub's oozing sphincters, what time is it? You sniff at the air, certain you can sense sunlight. Well, that would explain why you're feeling so awful. How long were you out for?

"Knight of Light," you say, "I don't suppose you're still here, are you?"

No response. Not that you're surprised. No doubt she let herself out to carry on being a hero. You just hope she locked the door behind her. You'll have to go check.

...Later. When your body doesn't feel like it's decomposing. You swear, you were feeling better for a little while there last night. You forced your Power without any Crown to speak of and then decided in your hubris that you didn't need your "secret weapon" afterwards to mitigate the side-effects. Now you're paying the price and you entirely deserve it.

After lying on the sofa for a while, almost immobile under the weight of your aching, you eventually decide that enough is enough. You haul yourself to your feet and drag your body from the soft, fuzzy carpet of your sitting room to the cold linoleum of the kitchen, all the while clutching your head as every footstep causes your think pan to burst with furious agony, sending waves of pain up through your horns and down your postural column.

You fumble around in the cabinets until you locate the bottle of nasty human bourbon you stashed in here. You unscrew the cap and take a swig straight from the bottle. It smells like gasoline and tastes like fire and industrial solvent, the mixed-up senses firing in your think pan as explosions of angry maroons and crimsons. Between the synesthesia and the familiar burn down your consumption tunnel, the alcohol is proving to be a pleasing distraction to the aches in your face.

Physician, heal thyself. Or, failing that, lean against the thermal hull and have another sip. You’re not even getting drunk; it’s only ethanol and that does about as much for troll physiology as plain water. It’s an acquired taste you’ve gotten the hang of, like olives or unagitated grubslurry. But that doesn’t matter. You’re just nursing your headache. Who knows, this kitchen might stop spinning around you any moment now.

By the third or fourth sip, the blasts of colour have begun to distract you from the long list of aches and pains that are vexing you. It's weird, being blind. Although it makes perfect sense on an intellectual level that your senses would adapt to compensate for being unable to see, you can't wrap your mind around how you can smell colours with olfactory organs that are unable to detect light photons. It should be impossible and yet it just sort of... happens somehow.

Your attention drifts back to the bottle of bourbon in your hand. You can faintly smell the glimmering, citrus-yellow words against the nutty brown label, but it's much too small and much too ornate for you to read it by smell alone.

Out of nowhere, you remember Starstorm telling you about a blind friend of his who would lick people, computer monitors and everything else to suss out their appearances. He definitely has some weird friends -- you're a prime example, really -- but surely there's no way that could work? She must just do it to gross people out.

A ridiculous thought enters your head. No, you're not going to lick the bottle like some kind of goblinoid squatbeast. It's probably the dumbest idea you've had in weeks. You feel like a grade-A idiot just for thinking about it.

And yet, the rough surface of the label beckons. Try as you might, you can't get the idea out of your head.

You poke your tongue out and tentatively bring it towards the label. This isn't going to work. What are you doing, Hippok, licking random objects at six in the morning? Bronya would be so disappointed in you.

Your tongue makes contact with the label and your entire mouth is filled with colour as a multifaceted wave of sensory input bursts over you, far more vividly than than anything you ever experienced when you were sighted. For a few moments you just stand there, running your tongue across the label in astonishment. Your pan is so blown by the intensity of what you're sensing that you forget about your headache. You can read the writing on the label and the minute shifts in the ink's composition and even the slight change in luminosity where different amounts of glue were used to stick it to the bottle.

This is amazing. For the first time in six months, or however long it's been, you don't miss your eyesight. You couldn't put words to the bizarre jumble of gratitude, embarrassment and wonder that's ricocheting through your body but you're smiling like a wiggler on the 12th Perigee's Eve and you can't find it in you to care. This is wonderful. This is magnificent. You feel like a whole new troll.

...Starstorm must never find out about this.

Wait, shit, Starstorm! You didn't tell him the plan was off! And yet there's no sign that he's been here, which is somewhat unsettling. You rush back into the living room and haul the portable communicator from where you had stashed it behind the sofa. It's about the size and weight of a microwave but it's still the smallest one you could get your hands on. After all, if Latula finds out you're still in contact with your old villainous associates, that would go badly for you.

You switch the communicator on, ghost your hands across the keyboard until you feel the raised nubs on the F and J keys, and take a big sniff until the colours on the screen swim into a coherent form in your mind. For a second, you debate whether or not to lick the screen. As tempting as it is, you probably shouldn't. You bought this thing second hand, after all. You have no idea where it's been, but if you lick it you might be unfortunate enough to find out.

\-- traumaticTriage [TT] began trolling USERNAME WITHHELD [16] --  
  
TT: Are you sTill on your way To my hive, STarsTorm?  
TT: There's been a change of plan.  
Due to USERNAME WITHHELD [16]’s privacy settings, you cannot receive this message.  
Due to USERNAME WITHHELD [16]’s privacy settings, you cannot receive this message.  
TT: STop using your ridiculous quirk. Your de-idenTifier is blocking your messages.  
16: Sorry. It’s a difficult habit to break.  
16: But no, I'm not on my way. I got caught up in the financial district last night and only just got free.  
TT: The financial disTricT?  
TT: Has iT been a lucraTive nighT for you, Then?  
16: Not in the slightest. Cryo Girl was hunting down the Mechanist and found me instead.  
16: She trapped me inside a block of ice in the vaults beneath the Mark Sassacre Bank and Trust and left me there. She was in such a hurry that she didn’t even have the decency to call the cops.  
16: No lie, I would have preferred arrest, torture and disappearance to being stuck in a block of ice. I lost track of how many hours I spent blasting my way out.  
TT: ThaT's rough. My sympaThies.  
16: You know what’s worse? The Mechanist arrived after she left and cleaned the place out.  
16: He even had the audacity to take a selfie with my frozen ass as a backdrop. For the past few hours, he's been sending me a bunch of selfies of him posing atop the sacks of money that *I* was supposed to steal.  
TT: I bet he's trying to aggravate you because of what happened at City Hall.  
16: No shit he's trying to aggravate me. It's working.  
TT: Check the meTadaTa.  
TT: Maybe his overconfidence is making him sloppy?  
16: Already tried that. Zero luck as per usual.  
16: The exif tags were scrubbed as clean as a rustblood’s ablution trap. Except for the location field, which read "Starstorm’s mom’s house."  
TT: RusTblood!?  
TT: WhaT The hell, STarsTorm?  
16: It’s just a figure of speech, calm down. We get it, you’re a "conscientious" middleblood, the performative outrage isn’t necessary.  
16: Anyway, none of this matters. What do you mean when you say the plan has changed?  
TT: The KnighT of LighT arrived lasT night.  
TT: I healed her injuries, leT her resT, and when she lefT I did noThing To sTop her.  
TT: We're noT selling her To The MidnighT Crew.  
16: Well. That is frustrating.  
16: I mean, fuck you for reneging on our deal, but it's not like I would have been able to assist you anyway.  
16: I'm surprised at you though. What made you change your mind?  
Due to USERNAME WITHHELD [16]’s privacy settings, you cannot receive this message.  
TT: ThaT lasT message goT censored.  
16: I said:  
16: 16: Do you not like having money? Or are you going soft on me?  
TT: Ah.  
TT: The laTTer, I'm afraid.  
TT: She was already in such a sTaTe ThaT I couldn'T bring myself To inflicT furTher harm.  
16: What a load of bullshit. I can't believe you.  
16: You killed loads of people before the timeline broke. What makes the Knight of Light so special?  
TT: Like I said, I'm going sofT.  
TT: Maybe iT's a vesTige of my conscience or some kind of jadeblooded pacifism complex.  
16: When did you ever have a conscience?  
TT: Oh, I never did, but I definiTely remember preTending To have one.  
TT: IT was back when I sTill ThoughT I'd grow up To be a good liTTle jadeblooded cavern maiden, which should Tell you how doomed ThaT idea was.  
TT: Anyway, lisTen. While the KnighT was here, I spoke wiTh The Seer of Doom for a spell. He has The same dreams abouT The Cosmic WiTch as you do, and he's Terrified ThaT one day she's going To come back and desTroy the ciTy.  
TT: If I recall correcTly, he said we were all going To drown in blood or some such nonsense.  
16: Well shit, that sure is something.  
16: If he's having the same dreams, it sure makes it harder to pretend they’re nonsense.  
TT: PreTend? So you’ve always ThoughT They were real? AT leasT To some exTenT?  
16: I don’t want to talk about this. It isn’t imporTanT at all right now.  
TT: No, I Think iT’s very imporTanT.  
TT: You always Told me They were *jusT* dreams, which makes me suspicious ThaT maybe when you say "unimporTanT" you really mean The exacT opposiTe.  
TT: Have you been hoofbeasTshiTTing me This enTire Time?  
TT: Do your disrepuTable dersiTe dreams have significanT meaning which you've failed To share?  
16: Drop it. I said I don’t want to talk about it.  
16: If you’re really going to be like this, I may have to reconsider how willing I am to aid you in the future. Unless you don’t want my assistance any more.  
16: In which case sure, carry on needling me about how much of my dreams I choose to share. Have fun starving to death because nobody comes over to bring you your groceries.  
TT: Say no more.  
TT: Consider The maTTer dropped like a sickly wiggler Thrown onTo The rejecT pile.  
16: Good. That’s the right answer.  
16: In any case, I'm going home. Tonight is the most disappointing night I've had in a long while.  
TT: Fair enough. Safe journey, STarsTorm.  
TT: Hey, acTually I've jusT had an idea.  
TT: RaTher Than reTurn To your hive, you should come To mine for The day.  
TT: Do you wanT dinner? I’ve been Trying ouT some more human recipes and I'd appreciaTe a TesT subjecT for my spagheTTi.  
TT: Plus, I bet you could do with a good meal afTer The nighT you've had.  
16: Uh. You know I already have a lusus, right  
TT: So you don’T wanT any spagheTTi?  
16: Nah. I’m good.  
TT: Well you’re welcome To whaTever’s in my Thermal hull if you jusT wanT To have a small snack and siT in fronT of the Tv for a biT  
16: Fuck that noise. And all your other weird paternal instincts, too.  
16: I’ve got a 2XL bag of chilli cheese grub puffs at my hive with my name on it. I’ll be fine.  
TT: ThaT is so horrifyingly unhealThy.  
TT: Do you *wanT* your bloodpusher To calcify before you're fifTeen?  
16: Jegus, Hippok. Just fucking stop.  
TT: AlrighT, fine, I'll sTop. JusT remember The offer's noT going away anyTime soon.  
TT: You're welcome To sTop by whenever you're in The area.  
TT: Anyway, ThaT was all i had To say.  
TT: Take care, STarsTorm.  
  
\-- USERNAME WITHHELD [16] ceased trolling traumaticTriage [TT] \--

#### END OF INTERMISSION TWO

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Questions, comments and criticism (constructive, deconstructive or otherwise) are all very much appreciated! You can find me on Tumblr at [macrocosmonaut.tumblr.com](http://macrocosmonaut.tumblr.com/).


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